Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sitting room of Castle Caladan held a hush that felt older than the stone itself. Its tall windows, framed in weather-worn blackwood, looked out over a sea glazed silver in the dying light. Heavy velvet curtains were half-drawn against the wind, their folds unmoving. The vaulted ceiling loomed above, lost in shadow, supported by massive stone pillars streaked with the memory of salt and centuries. Oil lamps burned low in the iron sconces, their flames dancing with every draft that slipped through the ancient walls. A long table stretched between the hearth and the windows—simple, worn smooth by time. Tonight, there was no harpist in the corner, no low conversation by the fire. The only sounds were the occasional sighs of shifting wood. The silence settled thick as sea fog, heavy and waiting.

The tapestries hanging along the walls bore the ancient crest of House Atreides—a hawk in flight, wings wide, talons poised. The air smelled of beeswax, lemon oil, and the distant brine of the sea. 

Its high-arched ceilings, once radiant with gold leaf, now peeled like old wounds, revealing the naked stone beneath. The dark columns held their vigil still, streaked with salt veins where the sea air had kissed them for decades, drawing crystals from the stone as if nature were slowly reclaiming what once belonged to it. Oil lamps flickered in their iron sconces, but their light no longer danced across polished silver. Instead, it pooled weakly over tarnished goblets and plates worn thin by generations of scrubbing.

At the heart of the room stretched the long blackwood table, its surface etched with the memory of a hundred years: knife marks like faded battle scars, the ghost-lines of feasts and politics, of toasts and betrayals, of oaths whispered into wine and alliances that once shaped empires.Tonight, there were no alliances. Only three places set at a table meant for thirty: her beloved husband, her young son and herself.

Paul sat before her, straight-backed as the ancient blackwood chair could make him, his face already a mirror of his father’s—the same sharp cheekbones, the same quiet intensity simmering beneath the surface. But where Leto’s gaze carried the weight of battles lost, Paul’s still burned with the untempered fire of youth, with a boy’s unshakable belief that honor could carve justice from an unjust universe.

He should have known our halls when they rang with laughter, she thought, not bitterly, but with a mother’s quiet sorrow. He should have seen the feasts where light glinted off a hundred raised glasses, where the air hummed with the voices of allies who called themselves friends. Now, those same chairs stood empty—not as ghosts, but as reminders. The other Houses had scattered like seabirds before a storm—all but a handful too proud or too foolish to fear the Emperor's displeasure.

The Emperor. Feyd-Rautha the first.

The name coiled in her mind, venomous. But the true architect of their ruin had been the Baron—Vladimir Harkonnen, that bloated spider who had spun his webs through the Imperium. She could still see it in her nightmares: Leto’s father cut down on the Landsraad steps, his blood dark against the stone while the Baron’s laughter echoed through the hall. And then, the final insult—his brute of a nephew wed to Irulan, the last Corrino princess, her name used to gild Harkonnen rule with stolen legitimacy.

Yet, as she watched Paul trace a finger along the edge of his plate—a gesture so like Leto’s when he was lost in thought—she felt not despair, but defiance.

They had taken much. Their armies, their standing, their voice in the Great Conventions—all gone. But Caladan remained. Her family remained. The salt-worn stones of their castle still stood, and the tapestries, though frayed, still bore the hawk in flight. Leto’s father had died unbowed. Her husband would do the same. And Paul—

A draft stirred the air, making the great hawk on the wall ripple as if readying for flight.

Paul looked up then, meeting her gaze with eyes that held no fear, only a question. She smiled, just slightly. Let them have their throne, she thought. Let them choke on their spice and their schemes. House Atreides needed no gilded halls to remember who they were.

Her gaze drifted to Leto.

Her Duke was a master of control, but Jessica had been trained by the Bene Gesserit to see what others missed. The silence between them was not the comfortable quiet of shared years, but something taut—a bowstring pulled too tight.

She reached for her wine, letting the movement draw his eye. “The fishermen say the winter tides will be mild this year,” she offered, her voice a gentle probe.

Leto’s fingers tightened around his glass. “Good,” he said, too flat.

Paul glanced between them, sensing the undercurrent. Jessica caught his questioning look and gave the faintest shake of her head. Not now .

She waited until Paul—ever perceptive—excused himself with a murmured word about homework. The moment the door closed behind him, she turned to Leto.

“Tell me.”

He rose, his chair scraping against stone. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Do not lie to me.” She stood, her voice low but edged. “I see it in your hands. In your breath. Something has happened.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, with a slow exhale, he reached into his coat and withdrew a folded letter. The seal of the Guild Bank was broken, the edges crumpled as if clenched in a fist.

"They’ve refused us," he said, his voice hollow. "No more loans. And they demand repayment—all of it—within the quarter."

Jessica took the letter, her fingers brushing his. The paper was cold to the touch. She scanned the words, each line a tightening noose.

"Then we find another way," she said.

Leto’s laugh was a dry, brittle thing. "What way? Our name is ash in the Imperium’s mouth. No House will lend to us now, not with Feyd-Rautha’s boot on our throat."

She let the letter fall to the table. "Not a loan," she said. "A marriage."

His head snapped toward her. "Paul?"

"To a Minor House. One with wealth but no standing. They would trade coin for the honor of Atreides blood, even now."

"No." The word was a blade. "No Major House parts with its sons—only daughters. And what Minor House would risk the Emperor’s wrath?"

Jessica stepped closer, her voice softening. "One whose lord owes you his life."

A beat of silence. The sea wind rattled the windows.

Understanding flickered in Leto’s eyes. "Gurney."

"Chusuk’s vineyards overflow with gold," she said. "And Gurney Halleck has not forgotten who pulled him from Harkonnen chains."

Leto turned away, his hands braced against the windowsill. "You would have me trade my son’s future for coin?"

"I would have him live to see a future at all." She moved beside him, her shoulder brushing his. "Gurney’s kin would treat him well. And Paul... he is strong enough to bear this."

Below them, in the courtyard, Paul’s laughter floated up—bright, untroubled. The sound twisted something in Leto’s face.

"Gods," he whispered. "To stoop to this..."

Jessica touched his arm. "Not stooping. Surviving." She nodded toward the tapestry on the wall, where the Atreides hawk strained against the wind. "Even the mightiest wings must bend to the storm."

Silence. Then, barely audible:

"Write to Halleck."

Jessica exhaled. The decision was made. Beyond the windows, the tide began to shift—slow, unseen, inevitable.

Chapter Text

The dining hall of Castle Caladan lingered like an echo of glory long since hollowed by loss—a monument to a grandeur that had bled out over time. A cold wind rattled faintly at the stained-glass windows, and Paul Atreides, heir of a dying name, felt as if the stone around him were holding its breath. He sat in his high-backed chair, clad in a dark green tunic embroidered with fine, simple threadwork along the cuffs and collar. The cloth was rich, the kind reserved for formal dinners, but unadorned by gold or jewels. His boots were polished to a dull sheen, resting lightly on the mosaic floor. He hadn't touched his food.

Across from him, Duke Leto Atreides—his father—cut his meat with slow, precise movements. His face, carved by years of command and sorrow, was unreadable. He wore a black jacket fastened with a single silver clasp at the throat. Everything about him was understated, elegant, controlled.

At the head of the table sat Lady Jessica, robed in midnight blue, her auburn hair braided and pinned beneath a delicate silver circlet. She had not eaten either. Her hands rested, folded, on the table, but there was tension in her knuckles.

Only three places were set at the long table. The rest remained empty, like ghosts.

Paul glanced at the untouched fish on his plate. White-fleshed and delicately seasoned, its steam had long since faded. He could not remember what the steward had called it. He did not care.

Jessica’s voice, low and smooth, broke the silence. “You’re not eating.”

“I’m not hungry,” Paul replied.

His voice was too flat, too quick. Jessica’s brow lifted by a fraction, but she said nothing.

Leto set his knife down carefully. “There is something we must discuss, Paul. This dinner wasn’t only for formality.”

Paul felt his throat tighten.

He already knew. He had felt it the moment he entered the hall. The air itself had changed. Something final lingered here. Not death—something colder.

“You’ve come of age,” Leto said. “It’s time to consider your duty to the House.”

Paul looked between them, trying to read their expressions.

“That sounds ominous,” he said. “Should I be expecting a duel?”

Jessica gave a ghost of a smile. “Nothing quite so bloody.”

“There is to be a union,” Leto said. “A marriage. We’ve made arrangements.”

Paul froze.

“A marriage,” he echoed.

“To House Halleck,” Jessica continued. “You will leave for Chusuk tomorrow.”

He rose too quickly. The chair scraped against the stone with a shriek.

“To House Halleck? That’s a joke.”

Jessica’s voice didn’t waver. “It is not.”

“They’re not even a real House,” Paul snapped. “They’re merchants. Winemakers and shepherds. Why not just exile me outright?”

“Because exile would mean surrender,” Leto said. “This is survival.”

Paul’s fists clenched at his sides. “And the man you’re marrying me into? Gurney Halleck? They call him the Old Wolf. The servants say he keeps knives under his pillow and scars on every inch of him.”

Jessica’s gaze sharpened. “The servants say many things. They don’t know the man.”

“I don’t know him!” Paul shouted, and his voice echoed sharply against the stone.

He hated how young it sounded. How afraid.

Leto stood. He didn’t raise his voice.

“Gurney Halleck has earned every scar. Every title. He is no noble-blooded sycophant. He commands loyalty not through fear, but through honor. He leads from the front, not from a throne.”

Paul turned away from them, pacing toward the far wall where a stained-glass window showed the sea at dawn. His reflection shimmered faintly on the glass—slim, pale, sharp-featured. Too much like his mother.

“And what am I to him?” he asked. “Some trembling princeling forced into his hall like a gift wrapped in velvet?”

Jessica stood as well. “You are the hope of our House, Paul. And if you will not do this for duty, do it for survival. Do it because we have nowhere else left to run.”

He didn’t answer. His breath fogged the window.

“You’ll be safe on Chusuk,” Leto said, softer now. “The Harkonnens will overlook a marriage to a minor House. It buys us time. It gives us allies.”

“And what about me?” Paul asked, turning back to them. “What do I gain?”

Jessica crossed the space between them and touched his cheek with the back of her fingers. Her touch was cool.

“You gain a future.”

He closed his eyes.

The silence returned, vast and echoing.

At last, he whispered, “When do I leave?”

Jessica stepped back.

“In the morning.”

***

The hallway outside the dining hall was dimly lit, the sconces burning low as though the castle itself wished to sleep. Paul’s footsteps echoed down the corridor, each one a little sharper than the last. His jaw was set, but his face—still boyish in some places, leaner now from training and hunger he didn’t name—was tight with something he hadn’t yet learned how to hide.

He passed the portraits of old Atreides lords, their painted eyes watching him like ghosts with opinions. None had worn this expression—not that he could remember: not fear, not exactly, but disbelief turning slowly into rage. The kind that rises in the throat and hardens behind the eyes.

He climbed the stairs to the east wing—his wing—and stepped into his private chambers.

The suite was still. The fire crackled in the hearth, low and half-hearted, as if even it felt the weight of the coming morning. Everything was in its place. The harp in the corner. The writing desk. The worn leather-bound copy of Meditations of the Mind’s Blade lying facedown where he’d left it. It was the room of a prince, and yet, in that moment, it felt like a tomb.

Paul stood in the center, unmoving. His expression faltered for a moment as he looked around. His mouth parted slightly, and for a heartbeat he looked like a child again—lost, unmoored. But he blinked quickly and set his shoulders.

Then the knock.

He didn’t answer.

The door opened anyway.

Jessica stepped inside, soft and composed. Her face was gentle, but the tension sat just behind her eyes—the kind of quiet storm only those closest to her would ever notice. Her long hair, silvering faintly at the temples, fell in soft waves around her shoulders. Her mouth was pulled in a straight line that wasn’t quite sadness, but close.

She looked at him, just looked, and something flickered behind her gaze—pride, worry, helplessness.

Paul didn’t meet her eyes. He stared at the fire.

“I thought you’d come to terms with it,” she said gently.

He let out a breath, almost a scoff. “You thought wrong.”

Jessica moved further into the room, her steps silent, her eyes never leaving him. She stopped just a few paces away. Her brows were drawn ever so slightly, and the muscles in her jaw were working beneath the skin.

“You’re frightened,” she said.

His head tilted slightly, as if the statement amused him, but his lips didn’t move.

“Paul.” Her voice softened more. “I know this feels cruel. But we are no longer in a world where choices are kind.”

He turned toward her, slowly. His eyes were sharp, burning. His brows were low, drawn inward.

“You’ve always said we were different from the Harkonnens,” he said. “That we ruled with honor, not fear. That we don’t trade lives like coins.”

Jessica’s expression didn’t flinch, but her mouth tightened. Her eyes searched his, something motherly surfacing just beneath the discipline.

“We don’t.”

“Then what is this?”

Jessica’s chin lifted slightly, and her face held steady, but her gaze flickered—just once. The briefest glint of pain behind practiced calm.

“This is the last move we have left.”

The fire popped. Paul’s face twitched—a sudden tension around his mouth. He looked down. His jaw clenched.

He looked back up. “You always talk about paths,” he said. “About ways forward. You taught me to see more than one possibility.”

Her eyes were glistening faintly now, though she refused to let them break. “And sometimes,” she said, “all paths lead to sacrifice.”

Paul’s throat moved as he swallowed. He turned away, then back, as if trying to break from something that wouldn’t let go.

“He’s ugly, isn’t he.”

Jessica didn’t respond immediately. Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes softened—her breath caught, faintly visible in the movement of her chest.

“He’s covered in scars. You didn’t deny it earlier.”

She came closer, slowly, her face tilting, assessing him. Her features were tender now, open in a way she rarely allowed.

“He is scarred, yes,” she said. “Life has not been kind to Gurney Halleck. But there is music in him still.”

Paul’s brows drew together. He looked at her, searching her face for irony, for some twist—but found only sincerity.

“That’s what people always say when they want you to ignore what’s right in front of you.”

Jessica’s lips parted into a wry, almost wistful smile—brief, vanishing. “You may be right. But you’ll understand, in time. There’s more to strength than beauty.”

His face hardened again. He turned away, blinking rapidly. His profile caught the firelight, and for a moment, he looked far older than his years.

Jessica watched him in silence, something inside her falling gently apart.

She reached into her sleeve and drew out a pale shell, smoothed by ocean tides.

She stepped forward, slowly, carefully, and pressed it into his hand.

Paul looked down at it—then at her. His expression cracked, just faintly. His brows raised, not in surprise, but in disbelief.

“I found it when I was pregnant with you,” she said. “I used to keep it by my bed. I want you to have it now.”

Paul’s throat worked again. He didn’t speak. His face was unreadable except for the shimmer in his eyes and the tremor just beneath his lip.

“Why?” he asked.

Jessica’s smile was full of pain.

“Because wherever you go, you are still mine. And you are still of this place.”

He curled his fingers around the shell—tight. Like someone afraid it might vanish if he let go.

Jessica watched him for another moment. Then she stepped forward and kissed his forehead, gently, her hand lingering at his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For the way the world is.”

She turned, left, and did not look back.

The door closed softly behind her.

Paul remained standing for a long time.

Eventually, he sat down on the edge of his bed, still holding the shell.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours.

The room grew darker as the flames burned lower. He lay back against the bedcovers, still clothed, unable to move. His eyes burned.

He didn’t cry.

Not quite.

But he lay there, staring at the ceiling, body tense with something wordless. With grief that hadn’t yet found its shape. With anger that felt too small for the vastness of what he was losing.

He would never see Caladan the same way again.

And in the morning, he would leave it behind.

Chapter Text

The Guild transport spat Paul onto Chusuk’s cracked landing field, as unceremoniously as refuse dumped from a cart. No banners snapped in greeting, no horns blared to honor the blood of Atreides—only a lone figure in brown livery awaited him, bowing with a perfunctory dip of the head, a hollow formality. Even the title—"my lord"—came twisted on the man’s tongue, stretched thin with something perilously close to pity.

So this is what disgrace tastes like, Paul thought, drawing a slow breath. The air was swollen with the cloying perfume of blooming flowers and the earthy musk of freshly-turned soil.

"Your escort awaits," the attendant murmured, with a vague gesture.

A gondola hung in the shimmering heat, its frame borne by two aging repulsor-lifts that whined softly in protest. Curtains of somber velvet draped its sides, embroidered with the crest of House Halleck: a heavy cluster of grapes tangled in cruel barbed wire. Fruit and steel. Commerce and pain . A merchant’s badge, not a warrior’s standard.

Paul’s jaw tightened until he tasted blood at the back of his teeth.

This is where I’ll be wed. The thought struck him like a slap. No grand ceremony in the Atreides halls, no proud declarations before the Landsraad. Just a quiet, shameful transaction—two signatures on a contract, witnessed by strangers. His mother wouldn’t be there to help him style his hair. His father wouldn’t clasp his shoulder and murmur the old words of blessing. There would be no feasting, no music, no laughter ringing through vaulted halls. Only silence, and the weight of a name bartered for coin.

Chusuk—a world whose riches grew not from conquest but from vineyards, a planet whose wines spilled across imperial banquets while its name dissolved into nothingness in the halls of power. A fitting exile for a fallen House.

The gondola lifted and slid forward, whispering over the landscape. Below, endless vineyards rolled out in waves, glistening green under the strange, molten gaze of Chusuk’s amber sun. The land smelled of crushed summers, of rot sweetened to the edge of intoxication.

Will he even say the vows properly? Paul wondered. Or will it be another merchant’s bargain, stripped of all ceremony? The Atreides had married for politics before, but always with honor, always with the dignity of their lineage. Now he would kneel in some foreign church, pledging himself to a man he’d never met.

In the distance, his new prison loomed—a marble-white estate sprawled across the hills, white terraces cascading down the slopes, drowning in the lush greenery. Gaudy. Overripe. Choked with its own wealth.

A gilded cage.

***

The gondola deposited Paul at the foot of a sweeping staircase of veined white marble, its steps worn smooth by generations of footsteps. The mansion loomed before him—a sprawling edifice of honey-colored stone and arched colonnades. It was beautiful, in the way a jeweled knife was beautiful: sharp-edged, ostentatious, meant to impress rather than welcome.

No one waited at the doors.

A servant in deep burgundy livery materialized from the shadows. "The Master awaits you in his study, my lord," the man murmured, bowing just deeply enough to avoid offense.

Paul's fingers twitched at his sides. On Caladan, guests of honor were met at the threshold with salt and song. Here, he was being summoned like a merchant to a ledger review.

Of course, he thought bitterly, following the servant through cavernous halls. This isn't a homecoming. It's a transaction.

The interior was a study in calculated opulence. Sunlight poured through stained-glass windows, casting ruby and gold patterns across mosaic floors. The air smelled of polished wood and something faintly alcoholic—not the crisp brine of home, but the cloying sweetness of aging wine. Everywhere Paul looked, wealth announced itself: gilded wainscoting, tapestries woven with silver threads, vases of blown glass from distant planets. Beautiful, yes. But cold. 

Like the difference between a living forest and a cabinet of preserved specimens, Paul thought. On Caladan, beauty grew wild in the crashing waves and storm-lashed cliffs. Here, it had been captured, tamed, and put on display.

The servant stopped before double doors of dark wood. "The Master's office."

Paul entered without knocking.

The room was unexpectedly austere—a fortress of practicality amidst the mansion's finery. Ledgers lined the shelves instead of objets d'art. A massive blackwood desk dominated the space, its surface scarred from decades of use. And behind it, rising from his chair was Gurney Halleck. His future husband.

Turned out, he wasn’t the broken wretch Paul had half-expected. He stood behind his desk—an aging warrior with the bearing of a man who had earned every scar and every gray hair through hard living. His frame was still powerful, though time had begun to soften the edges of what must have once been an imposing physique.

A inkvine scar bisected his left cheek—a pale, raised line that pulled slightly at the corner of his mouth, giving his resting expression a permanent frown. His dark eyes burned with an intensity that made Paul straighten his spine instinctively, that hawk-like gaze missing nothing. He wore his years and his wounds plainly, without apology.

His clothes spoke of wealth but not fashion—a high-collared jacket of good black wool, its cut outdated by at least a decade, fastened with simple silver buttons. The fabric was expensive but unadorned, the stitching impeccable but utilitarian. This was the attire of a man who valued quality over ostentation, who dressed for function rather than show. 

"You look younger than I expected," Gurney said, his voice a deep rasp, like stone grinding against stone. That single scar twitched as he spoke, making his frown deepen.

Paul resisted the urge to touch his own smooth face. "And you're not what I was told."

“Let me guess—'the ugly one with the money'?" Gurney gave a dry, humorless chuckle.  "Well, the money part's true enough." 

The joke went flat.

The light caught the silver threading through his dark hair, the lines etched at the corners of those intense eyes. He might have been handsome once, before time and hardship had reshaped him into something rougher, more enduring.

"Why are you so late?" Gurney said. 

Paul didn't flinch. "Your gondola moved like a drunken harvesters' cart."

A beat of silence. Then Gurney's mouth twitched. "Fair enough." He gestured to a chair. "Sit. We have contracts to discuss."

Contracts. Not vows. Paul remained standing. "My father said you owed him a debt."

"And I pay my debts." Gurney leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight. "But make no mistake, boy—this isn't some romantic union. It's a business arrangement with benefits for both sides."

Paul's jaw tightened. "How... pragmatic."

"Pragmatism keeps men alive." Gurney tapped a thick finger against the desk. "Here's how it will work. At dawn the day after tomorrow, we'll stand before a notary. No priests, no family, no fanfare. We'll sign the papers, say whatever words the law requires, and be done."

The clinical precision of it stung more than Paul expected. "That's it?"

"That's the legal part." Gurney's eyes gleamed. "The rest is up to you."

"The rest?"

"Whether you want this to be a marriage in name only." Gurney spoke matter-of-factly, as if discussing crop rotations. "You'll have your own quarters, your own life. Appear together at the required functions, play the happy couple when spies are watching. Beyond that..." He shrugged. "I'm not in the habit of forcing myself on anyone."

Paul's face burned. He'd expected many things—crudeness, maybe, or some awkward attempt at courtship. Not this... transactional detachment.

"And if I refuse?"

Gurney smiled—a slow, dangerous thing. "Then you can explain to your father why you threw away House Atreides' last chance at solvency over wounded pride."

Outside, a breeze stirred the vineyards, carrying the scent of overripe fruit through the open window. The silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken challenges.

Finally, Paul took the offered seat. "Show me the contracts."

The crooked, wolfish grin appeared on Gurney’s scarred face again. "Now you're talking like a proper merchant's husband."

***

The servant led Paul through a series of interconnected chambers—not the single cramped room he’d expected, but an entire wing of the mansion reserved for his use. A sitting room with low, cushioned benches and shelves of leather-bound books; a bedchamber with a four-poster draped in gauzy linen that stirred in the sea-scented breeze; a private courtyard where a shallow fountain murmured over black stones. The floors were cool underfoot, the pale wood worn smooth by generations of bare feet.

A silent attendant brought his supper on a tray—spiced fish glazed with honey, flatbread still warm from the oven, a carafe of wine so dark it looked black in the dimming light. He ate alone, listening to the distant sounds of the estate settling into evening: the creak of wooden beams, the far-off laughter of workers returning from the fields, the whisper of the wind through the grapevines.

Restless, he slipped out into the gardens as the first of Chusuk’s three moons rose.

The paths twisted like serpents between hedges of flowering jasmine, their perfume thick enough to taste. Paul turned left, then right, then left again—and found himself standing in a clearing he didn’t recognize, the mansion’s lights no longer visible through the foliage. Above him, the moons cast conflicting shadows that made the vines seem to writhe.

"Lost, my lord?"

Gurney’s voice came from behind him, amused. Paul turned to find the man leaning against a trellis, his scarred face half in shadow.

"I was exploring," Paul said stiffly.

"And found our oldest vine instead." Gurney pushed off the trellis and gestured to the gnarled plant twisting up the stone wall. "Planted by my great-grandfather. Still produces the sweetest grapes on Chusuk." He plucked one, offering it to Paul. "Try it."

The skin burst between Paul’s teeth, flooding his mouth with juice almost painfully rich.

Gurney watched him swallow before turning down the path. "Come. I’ll show you back."

They walked in silence for a time, the only sound their boots on the gravel and the distant chirp of night insects. Then Gurney spoke:

"You’re wondering why I agreed to this."

Paul kept his eyes on the path. "I assumed it was for the honor of an Atreides alliance."

Gurney’s laugh startled a flock of birds from the vines. "Let’s not lie to each other, boy. Your name’s worth less than a barrel of my cheapest swill these days."

The truth, laid bare. Paul’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

"Then why?"

Gurney paused beneath the arbor's latticework, where moonlight dappled through the grape leaves. He turned his face deliberately, letting the silver light catch the thick scar that ran from cheekbone to jaw—a twisted rope of flesh, pale against his weathered skin.

"This," he said, tapping the mark with two fingers, "was my seventeenth birthday gift." His voice carried the dry amusement of a man long past bitterness. "Beast Rabban's inkvine whip. My punishment for being disrespectful."

Paul studied the scar. Even healed, it looked painful—the skin pulled tight, the edges uneven where poison had eaten deeper than the blade.

"Your father saved me from the Harkonnen slave pits," Gurney continued. He plucked a grape from the vine, rolling it between his fingers. "Most nobles would've stepped over a prisoner. But Leto?" He popped the grape in his mouth, chewing slowly. "He sent his own physician. Had me carried to his ship wrapped in his second-best cloak."

The night insects hummed around them. Somewhere in the vineyards, a worker's laughter floated on the warm air.

Gurney met Paul's gaze squarely, his dark eyes glinting in the moonlight. "First decent thing anyone did for me after all those years in those pits. First time anyone risked Harkonnen wrath for a nobody." He wiped his hands on his trousers. "A man pays his debts. Even the ones that can’t be measured in solaris."

The night seemed to hold its breath. Somewhere in the distance, a nightbird called—once, twice. Then Gurney turned, gesturing toward the mansion’s glowing windows.

"Your rooms are that way. Try not to get lost again."

But as Paul moved to follow, Gurney caught his arm—just for a moment, just long enough to say, low and fierce:

"And Paul? That scar’s the only reason you’re standing here. Remember that when you’re counting what you’ve lost."

Then he was gone, melting into the shadows between the vines, leaving Paul alone with the moonlight and the weight of a debt he hadn’t known he carried.

Chapter Text

Paul sat at the ornate desk, a single suspensor lamp glowed in the heavy Chusuk night air. Before him lay a sheet of the finest parchment, its creamy surface marred only by a spreading ink blot—dark as a bruise, imperfect as his thoughts. He had dipped his pen three times now, watching each drop of ink pool and dry without forming a single word to his mother.

The estate breathed around him—the whisper of vines against marble balustrades, the distant gurgle of fountains in the courtyards below, the occasional creak of ancient wood settling like an old man shifting in his sleep. Through the open balcony doors, the night air carried the cloying perfume of night-blooming jasmine mixed with the earthy musk of fermenting grapes from the cellars. The scent should have been pleasant; instead it clung to his skin, thick as syrup, making each breath a conscious effort.

He lifted the pen again, hesitated.

Dearest Mother —

No. Too tender for what churned inside him.

Lady Jessica —

Too formal. Too cold.

The suspensor lamp wavered as a humid breeze slipped through the room, making shadows dance across the walls. Paul watched them play over the intricate carvings that framed every doorway, every arch—Halleck's obsession made manifest in wood and stone. 

Rising abruptly, Paul paced the length of the sitting room, his bare feet silent on the imported Caladan carpets that should have felt like home but only emphasized his displacement. The rooms were too large, too perfect—the blackwood writing desk without a single scratch, the wardrobe filled with untouched garments in Halleck colors, the porcelain washbasin so pristine it might never have held water. It wasn't a home; it was a stage set, waiting for him to play his role.

He stopped before the balcony, gripping the railing until his knuckles ached. Below, the vineyards stretched into darkness, moonlight catching on the occasional grape cluster like beads of blood. Somewhere out there, workers would already be stirring—the ever-present underclass of any Great House, their lives continuing unchanged while his had been upended with a signature.

The memory rose unbidden: Gurney across the negotiating table earlier that day, his scarred face impassive as he turned the pages of their marriage contract with hands that bore both sword calluses and the delicate marks of a baliset player.

"No ceremony," he'd said, voice rough as unaged whiskey. "No consummation requirements. Political alliance only, unless mutually agreed otherwise."

Each word had landed like a stone in Paul's gut. He'd expected—what? Some semblance of tradition? A nod to the sacredness his mother's teachings had instilled in him? Instead, he'd gotten a business transaction laid out with all the romance of a spice shipment manifest.

Paul's fingers twitched at his sides now, phantom echoes of the anger that had vibrated through him as Gurney spoke. The terms should have been a relief—no forced intimacy, no public spectacle to endure. But the clinical detachment of it all...

A door slammed somewhere in the manor's depths, the sound echoing through the hollow halls. Paul startled, his heart pounding against his ribs. For a wild moment, he imagined fleeing—slipping out into the garden, losing himself among the trees until he found some forgotten corner of the estate where he could breathe without this constant pressure.

But reality reasserted itself with cruel clarity. There were no allies here, no friendly ports. Just the vast, uncaring Imperium and the ever-watchful eyes of the Guild. Even if he could escape, where would he go? Home? To drag his family into open defiance of the Emperor?

The ink had dried on the abandoned letter. Paul returned to the desk and crumpled the parchment in his fist, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent room. Outside, the first hints of dawn tinged the horizon the color of watered wine.

Sleep wouldn't come. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever again in this place that smelled of dying flowers and false promises.

He moved to the untouched bed, its silks cool against his skin as he lay atop the covers, staring at the canopy where embroidered grapevines twisted in endless patterns. Somewhere beyond the balcony, a nightbird called—a mournful sound that seemed to echo the hollowness in his chest.

Morning would come. The wedding would proceed. Paul would play his part.

For now, in these last private hours before the mask settled into place, he allowed himself one shuddering breath, one moment of weakness where his throat tightened and his vision blurred. Then he schooled his features into calm, the way his mother had taught him.

***

The morning crept over Chusuk like a slow-held breath—the sky a bruised purple, heavy with rain that fell in silver threads, turning the air to mist. The scent of blossoms clung to everything, sweet and suffocating, mingling with the damp earth. Water drummed against the rooftops, a steady, mournful pulse, while runoff gurgled through copper gutters. Light barely penetrated the clouds; what little did was dull and diffuse, gilding the puddles in fleeting, leaden flashes. Each drop burst against the marble terraces, soaking into the porous stone until the entire estate seemed to weep.

Paul stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of his gilded prison, watching the rain distort the view of the garden below. His reflection stared back at him from the glass—a pale ghost with shadows like bruises beneath his eyes, his dark curls still tangled from a night of fitful dreams. The embroidered silk robe they'd given him—Halleck colors, maroon and bronze, of course—hung loose on his frame, the grape-and-wire crest itching against his collarbone like a brand.

He hadn't slept.

Not truly.

The bed, though sumptuous with its feather mattress and canopy of sheer gauze, might as well have been a slab of stone for all the rest it offered. Every time he'd closed his eyes, visions had come—his father's face the last time he'd seen it, drawn tight with forced calm; his mother's hands, steady as she adjusted his collar before sending him away; the cold-eyed stares of the servants who'd ferried him to this gilded cage.

And beneath it all, humming like a live wire, the knowledge that today—

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

Paul turned, his Caladan-bred instincts tensing his muscles before his mind caught up—but it was only a servant, one of the silent, efficient creatures that populated the estate. The man moved with unnatural quiet, placing a silver tray bearing a single letter on the elacca incrusted writing desk. The parchment seemed to leach all color from the room, its black seal glistening like oil.

House Harkonnen.

The servant withdrew without a word, but Paul barely noticed. His entire being focused on that seal—the serpent coiled around the dagger. His breath came short and sharp, the scent of jasmine in the room suddenly nauseating.

He told himself not to touch it. Told himself it wasn't his to open. But some terrible fascination drew him closer, close enough to see the looping, theatrical script addressing it to "The Esteemed Lord Halleck and His Most...Fortunate...Groom." The handwriting was unmistakable—Feyd-Rautha himself had penned this poison.

Paul recoiled as if burned, his back hitting the window just as bootsteps echoed in the hall—that particular cadence he'd already learned to recognize.

Gurney Halleck entered without knocking. The lord of House Halleck had abandoned any pretense of courtly dress; he wore a battered tunic of brown leather and a threadbare cloak, rainwater dripping from his shoulders. His scarred face was grim, set into deeper lines than Paul had yet seen. His gaze went immediately to the letter.

“Found you, did it?” Gurney muttered. His voice was low and gravelly, but there was a note of tension threading through it. 

He crossed the room in three strides, breaking the seal with his thumbnail. Paul watched as Gurney's face hardened line by line, the scar pulling taut across his cheek.

Outside, the rain intensified, sheeting against the windows in waves. Somewhere in the vineyards, a worker's shout was cut short—whether by the weather or some other misfortune, Paul couldn't tell.

Paul said nothing. He stood rigid by the window, hands clenched at his sides. Gurney read the letter in silence, the lines of his face tightening with every line. When at last he finished, he let out a breath through his nose and set the parchment down with exaggerated care, as though it were something filthy.

“Well,” he said. “Our quiet little wedding’s not to be so quiet after all.”

Paul swallowed hard. His voice came out strained and too high. “What does it say?”

Gurney gave him a look—measured, almost pitying. He picked up the letter again, reading aloud in a mocking lilt:

"To the Esteemed Lord Gurney Halleck of Chusuk, and the Honorable House Atreides:

It has come to Our gracious attention that an alliance of marriage is soon to be undertaken between your two venerable Houses.

Such happy tidings must not go uncelebrated."

Gurney’s lips curled as he read the next part:

"We, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, rightful Heir of the Imperium, do hereby announce Our intention to grace this event with Our presence, that We may personally extend Our blessings to the new union, and to ensure proper record of this historic reconciliation among Houses.

Long live the Imperium."

He dropped the parchment onto the desk as if it had burned him. The room was very still. Paul felt as if the floor had tilted beneath him. He put a hand out against the stone of the wall to steady himself. Feyd-Rautha. Here. On Chusuk. At his wedding. It was a grotesque mockery. A gloating wound torn open for the Harkonnen’s amusement.

Paul's mouth was dry. “He knows,” he said, barely above a whisper. “He knows I’m here.”

Gurney's expression darkened. “Aye. Someone told him. Or he sniffed it out himself, devil take him.”

Paul pushed away from the wall, pacing, his hands twitching uselessly at his sides.

“This was supposed to be quiet,” he said, voice rising. “Formal. Forgotten. That was the agreement—no guests, no attention—”

Gurney’s voice cut across his panic, rough and firm. “And it was the agreement, lad. But the game’s changed.”

Paul turned on him, face pale with anger. “Then call it off! Tell him it’s cancelled! Tell him—tell him—”

His voice cracked. He couldn't finish the thought. His mind raced, frantic, searching for an escape route that wasn’t there. Gurney’s eyes narrowed—not cruelly, but with a brutal sort of clarity.

“You think I can say no to the bloody Emperor?” he asked, low and grim. “You think he’ll hear it as anything but defiance?”

Paul’s breathing quickened. His chest heaved. Gurney crossed the room and grabbed his shoulders—not roughly, but firmly.

“You listen to me, boy,” he said. His scarred face was inches from Paul’s. His eyes, sharp and dark, bored into Paul’s as if trying to will strength into him. “You walk away from this, and he’ll have a ship full of Sardaukar here by nightfall. And then you’ll wish all he wanted was to watch you say your vows.”

Paul jerked away from him, heart hammering against his ribs. He stumbled backward, knocking into the corner of the desk. He pressed both hands flat against the wood, head bowed, trying to pull in air that wouldn’t come. The walls of the chamber felt like they were closing in—stone and shadow pressing closer, tighter, suffocating. The rain outside had thickened into a drumbeat against the windows.

He could see it now, as if it were already happening: Feyd-Rautha, resplendent in his black cape, smiling his cold, dead smile as Paul stood there like a dumbfounded pup. The entire Imperium knowing that the last Atreides had been married off in disgrace, watched over by the very House that had destroyed them. Paul squeezed his eyes shut. His nails bit into the wood of the desk. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the walls down with his bare hands.

Instead, he whispered: “I can’t.”

Gurney was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was not unkind.

“You can,” he said. “Because you must.”

Paul shook his head violently. His throat burned with unshed tears.

Gurney sighed—a sound full of weariness. “When you fight long enough,” he said, almost to himself, “you learn the difference between a defeat that ends you and a defeat you live through.”

Paul said nothing. 

“You live through this,” Gurney said, turning back to him. His voice was softer now, almost regretful. “You marry. You smile for the beast. You make him think you’re beaten.”

Paul lifted his head slowly, his face pale as chalk.

“And then?” he asked. Gurney’s eyes met his.

“And then, someday, you kill him.”

The words hung in the air between them, stark and bloodless. Paul drew a shuddering breath. Somewhere deep inside him, beneath the fear, something colder stirred. Not strength yet. Not resolve. But a terrible, patient hate. He nodded once, stiffly. Gurney nodded back.

“Good lad,” he said.

He crossed to the door but paused with his hand on the latch.

“You’ll want to dress properly,” he said without turning. “The beast likes a spectacle.”

Then he was gone, leaving Paul alone with the rain and the letter and the black, yawning future that had just swallowed him whole.

***

The air in his room clung like a second skin—thick with the scent of those damned flowers, their sweetness gone cloying, rotting at the edges. Paul sat by the window, fingers tracing the rivulets of rain that bled down the glass. Beyond, the world was a watercolor smear: trees bent under the downpour, their leaves shuddering with each gust. Caladan’s storms had been clean things, salt-sharp and furious, the wind howling like a wounded beast. Here, the rain fell in a ceaseless whisper, as if the sky itself were murmuring secrets.  

Feyd’s words coiled in his mind, ink still smudged from where he’d crushed the letter in his fist.  

He missed home with a violence that surprised him. Not the soft ache of nostalgia, but a hunger —for the bite of sea spray, for the way the light had struck the waves at dawn, gold over blue. Here, even beauty felt like a taunt. The marble terraces gleamed like bone under the rain; the gardens, too vibrant, too lush, seemed to mock him with their indifference. Vines choked the balustrades, their blossoms nodding under the weight of water. Alive. Unburdened.  

A servant passed in the hall, murmuring in that liquid dialect that slid through his grasp like smoke. You do not belong here. The words were a chant now, syncopated with the drum of rain on the roof.  

He pressed his forehead to the glass. Cold seeped through his skin. Somewhere, Feyd-Rautha was plotting. Somewhere, Gurney was counting the hours until their vows. And here Paul sat—a pawn between them, drowning in scents and silence.  

A knock at the door.  

Paul didn’t turn. "Enter."  

The hinges sighed, and the weight of footsteps—firm, deliberate—crossed the room. Speak of the devil. Paul didn’t need to look to know the shape of his presence, the way it filled the space without apology.  

"You’ve been hiding," Gurney said. Not an accusation, merely an observation.  

Paul exhaled, finally turning. Gurney stood a few paces away, a bundle of fabric cradled in his arms. His betrothed. The man who would, in a matter of days, bind himself to Paul in marriage. The thought still sent a strange thrill through him, half-dread, half-confusion.  

Gurney’s gaze was steady, unreadable. "I brought you something."  

Paul eyed the bundle. "What is it, a wedding gift?" His voice was drier than he intended.  

Gurney’s mouth quirked. "A necessity, not a gift. Your wedding attire."  

Paul’s fingers twitched. He had expected—well, he wasn’t sure. Some garish thing in Halleck maroon and bronze, perhaps, another reminder of where his loyalties were meant to lie now.  

Gurney stepped forward, offering the bundle. "Try it on. I want to see if it fits."  

A command, not a request. Paul bristled. On Caladan, he had chosen his own clothes, had prided himself on the subtlety of his wardrobe—Atreides greens and blacks, the silver thread of his House woven into the hems. Here, he was to wear what he was given.  

But he took the bundle anyway.  

Behind the painted folding screen, Paul let the fabric unfurl. 

Ceremonial garments lay across his arms like a spill of midnight riverwater, its folds heavy with embroidery. Paul had expected House Halleck’s dull bronze, but this— this was Atreides through and through. The fabric was a layered masterpiece: a cape of sheer black chiffon, transparent enough to reveal a shirt of deep emerald silk, its high collar stiff with silver-threaded vines. The matching vest was fitted, structured as armor, but the sleeves of a shirt were treacherously delicate—translucent panels billowing like moth wings, each etched with the faintest flowing patterns. A tribute to Caladan’s seas.  

Paul’s throat tightened. Behind the screen, he shed his plain tunic and donned the shirt. The silk slithered against his skin, cool as a blade’s flat. The weight was surprising—not restrictive, but deliberate, like the press of a hand between his shoulder blades. When he emerged, Gurney had turned to the window, shoulders rigid.  

“Well?” Paul prompted.  

Gurney turned.  

And froze.  

Paul watched his betrothed’s face fracture. The man’s usual frown evaporated; his lips parted, breath audibly catching. His gaze dragged from the sweep of the cape to the pale expanse of Paul’s throat above the collar, lingering like a touch.  

“Gods,” Gurney muttered.  

A flush climbed Paul’s neck. “Does it fit?”  

Gurney stepped closer, his calloused fingers hovering near the silver embroidery at Paul’s waist. “You look—” He swallowed. “—like vengeance dressed for a coronation.”  

Paul smirked. “Is that a compliment?”  

“A warning.” Gurney’s thumb grazed the hawk motif, his voice dropping. “They’ll see you in this and know. House Atreides isn’t erased. It’s sewn into you.”  

The air between them thickened. Paul’s pulse hammered—not from resentment now, but from the feral possessiveness in Gurney’s stare, the way his knuckles strained against the fabric, fingers twitching as if resisting the need to seize, to twist the material between his grasp until it tore.  

Gurney stepped back abruptly. “It’ll do.”  

But as he left, Paul caught the way his betrothed’s shoulders stayed taut, the way his boots hesitated at the threshold.  

Alone again, Paul faced the mirror. The clothes transformed him—not into a knave, but a knife. Green for his homeworld. Black for mourning. Silver for the edge he’d yet to wield.  

For the first time since landing on this gilded prison of a planet, he stood straight.

Chapter Text

Gurney Halleck stood before the mirror in his chambers, the first light of Chusuk’s amber sun bleeding through stained-glass windows and painting his scarred face in fractured hues of mellow gold. The colored panes caught the light like shards of a broken jewel, scattering it across the worn stone floor, the heavy drapes, the brass fittings on the mirror frame. His reflection flickered with each movement, like a ghost trapped in splintered light.

His wedding uniform clung to him like a second skin—black leather, stiff but perfectly fitted, embossed with bronze vinework. The embroidery coiled across his shoulders, climbing like living things, thorned and glittering. It was an exquisite piece of craftsmanship, the finest Chusuk’s tailors could produce under short notice, but Gurney couldn’t look at it without thinking of chains. What mockery, to bind it to hawk feathers—his House’s iron thorns would only tear Atreides wings.

Paul Atreides. Just the name made his jaw tighten.

He had told himself it would be simple. A transaction. A final act of loyalty to the House that had saved him. When Leto had pulled him out of the slave pits on Giedi Prime, Gurney had sworn he would give the man everything he had left. And when everything else was gone—when the Atreides were scattered, their wealth stripped, their titles meaningless—there had only been one thing left to give. His name. His allegiance. His body.

Marriage, then. A contract signed in desperation. He had thought the boy would be easy to endure—some delicate dukeling, soft-handed and spoiled, clinging to his father's legacy without understanding the weight of it. Gurney had braced himself for simpering words, for theatrical grief, for empty pride.

But when he saw Paul for the first time… the boy resembled a blade—too sharp for his own good, too beautiful for Gurney’s peace of mind. He remembered the moment too clearly: the doors swung open, the scent of Chusuk’s spring air mixing with the sterile chill of space travel. Paul had stepped into the room like a shadow pulled into light—slim, straight-backed, unflinching. His clothing was plain, travel-worn, the dark fabric still carrying a faint dusting of Caladan. His curls were tousled by the wind. His face, sharp and pale beneath the light, bore no sign of hesitation.

And his eyes.

Green. Not just bright, not merely striking—alive. Ancient, somehow. Too old for his face. Eyes that had seen too much and refused to look away. 

It had stunned Gurney. That one look. A flicker of something sharp and unnamable slid under his ribs, like a blade catching between the bones. He’d told himself it didn’t matter. 

That beauty was irrelevant. That this was a role to play, nothing more.

But then Paul had spoken. Not the simpering niceties of court, not the fearful deference Gurney had braced for. No, the boy had looked him dead in the eye and said, “Show me the contracts.” Flat and controlled, with the weight of command behind his words. 

That’s when Gurney had felt something dangerous stir in his chest. Something long buried. Hope, maybe. Or longing. Or the memory of desire. He didn’t want it. Didn’t welcome it.

"Stupid," he growled at his reflection, dragging a hand down his face. The scar ached, as it always did when he thought of the Harkonnens.

Rabban had given it to him. Not in battle, not in anything resembling honor. In the pits, with an inkvine whip, while Gurney’s arms were chained behind his back. He could still smell the stink of blood and sweat, still hear the animal howl of the crowd as Rabban leaned in close, his breath hot and reeking of spice beer. "You’ll wear my mark, Halleck. Every time you look in the mirror, you’ll remember who owns you."

Gurney stared at himself now, seeing Rabban’s shadow in the furrow of his brow, the tight line of his mouth.The memory twisted in his gut. He had sworn then that no Harkonnen would ever touch him again. And now one of them sat on the Golden Throne. Feyd-Rautha, the Beast Rabban’s younger brother. The Emperor in black leather and bloodstained jewels, descending on his wedding like a bird of prey.

A sharp knock broke the silence.

"Enter."

His steward stepped inside, his usually composed face tight with tension. "My lord. The Emperor’s ship has been sighted."

Gurney didn’t turn. "How close?"

"Close enough to see the markings." The steward swallowed. "The guns are uncovered."

A message, then. Feyd-Rautha wouldn’t fire on a wedding—even he wasn’t that crude—but he wanted them to know he could.

"Tell the household to stand ready," Gurney said. "And fetch the boy. Paul." He hesitated. 

"Make sure he’s dressed before they bring him. I don’t want the Emperor seeing him unprepared."

The steward bowed and left.

Gurney turned back to the mirror. The vines glinted bronze in the light. Chains. Always chains.

He had bound himself to this moment years ago, the day he took Leto’s hand and swore fealty. He would have followed the man into fire—and had. He had killed for him. Bled for him. Buried friends for him. And now he will marry his son.

A treason.

But also a trade. A shield. A promise.

But Paul—

Paul hadn’t asked for this.

The boy’s face rose unbidden in his mind. The way his brow furrowed when he read, the soft twist of his lips when he smiled. He wasn’t soft—not in the way Gurney had feared. There was steel in him. And sadness. A loneliness so sharp it seemed to echo in the air around him.

Gurney had spent the past week convincing himself that Paul was still just a boy. Just a political tool. A name and a bloodline, nothing more.

But then he’d find himself watching from the shadows—Paul in the gardens, fingers trailing over the grapevines like he was listening to their secrets. Or sitting at the table, arguing politics with the sharp bite of someone who’d tasted too much grief. Or leaning against a balcony, wind in his hair, humming an old Atreides song as if it belonged to him still.

And Gurney’s resolve would shatter.

Damn it. He wasn’t supposed to want him. He wasn’t supposed to imagine the feel of those lips—soft, unsure—pressed to his. Wasn’t supposed to wonder what it would be like to hold him close and feel that tension melt away.

He wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

Another knock.

“They’re ready for you, my lord,” the steward called softly from the hall.

Gurney took one last breath and looked at himself in the mirror. This version of himself—a soldier in ceremonial dress, a scarred relic bound to duty—stared back. The bronze vines shimmered, catching light like blades.

He adjusted the collar, smoothed the creases at his wrists, and turned toward the door.

Let the Emperor come. Let the vultures circle. He had made his choice. And whatever this was—love, lust, regret—it would burn away soon enough.

He only had to survive the day.

***

The air in the great hall of Halleck Manor had been thick with tension long before the horns sounded. Gurney stood rigid at the head of the gathering, his hands clasped behind his back, fingers digging into his own wrists hard enough to bruise. The black leather of his wedding uniform creaked faintly with every controlled breath, the bronze vines embroidered across his chest resembling scars.

Around them, the hall stood as a testament to Halleck wealth—a grand symphony of polished marble and gilded arches. The vaulted ceilings soared, their beams intricately carved with scenes of Chusuk’s legends, each detail gleaming under the glow of suspended chandeliers. The light danced across the walls, catching the threads of the tapestries that lined them—masterworks of silk and gold, woven with such precision that the figures seemed to breathe. No frayed edges here, no signs of decay; only the silent, immaculate power of a house that had prospered even under the Imperium’s tightening grip.

The air was rich with the scent of aged wine and rare spices, mingling with the faint, expensive musk of imported incense. Glowglobes shone not out of necessity, but for drama, casting a warm, honeyed light over the assembled guests. Jewels glittered at throats and wrists, silks whispered against polished floors, and yet—beneath the opulence, beneath the perfect veneer—something darker coiled. A tension. A warning.

The scent of fear, sharp as a blade’s edge, cut through the perfume.

Paul stood beside him, so close that Gurney could trace the frantic rhythm of his pulse beneath the paper-thin skin of his throat—a hummingbird’s wingbeat, betraying the calm his face struggled to maintain. The boy—no, not a boy anymore, not after today, never again—his husband-to-be, was draped in the ceremonial blacks and greens of House Atreides, the brocade garment clinging to his slender frame. He looked like something carved from moonlight, too fine for the crude reality of this political farce.

Paul’s hands, that seemed so sure, so steady—hands that had undoubtedly used to holding blades and turning pages of ancient texts with equal precision—twitched at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling as if grasping for a weapon that wasn’t there. Now, under the suffocating pretense of this wedding, Paul looked even more fragile than usual. His lips were pressed into a bloodless line. His lashes cast faint shadows on his cheeks as he blinked too often, too fast, as if fighting back something hot and humiliating—rage or terror, Gurney couldn’t tell.

He’s too young for this, the thought came unbidden, vicious in its clarity. Too young to be bartered, too young to stand motionless while Feyd-Rautha peeled back his dignity layer by layer. But youth had never spared anyone in this Imperium. It hadn’t spared Leto. It wouldn’t spare Paul.

Gurney wanted to reach out, to steady him with a touch, to remind him that he wasn’t alone in this. But tradition forbade it. The vows had not yet been spoken; the groom’s hands were not yet bound. To touch him now would be an insult—to the ceremony, to the Emperor, to the fragile illusion of control Gurney was clinging to.

So he could do nothing but stand there, close enough to feel the faint tremor running through the boy’s body, and pretend he wasn’t counting the ways this could break him.

The horns sounded again, closer this time, and the great doors at the far end of the hall groaned open. A hush fell over the assembled guests—a few local nobles and their families that had received last-minute invitations.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Emperor of the Known Universe, strode into the hall like a wolf entering a sheepfold. Feyd’s eyes swept across the keep without warmth, without even curiosity. Not a man visiting — a conqueror inspecting a ruin. There was no ceremony to it. No respect. Just dominance. Just ownership.

He was dressed in his customary black, the fabric so finely woven it seemed to drink the light around him. His Sardaukar followed, their boots leaving streaks of mud across the polished floor. The stains spread like wounds. Not Harkonnen house guards. Sardaukar.

Gurney’s jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it.

He remembered the way they moved, the inhuman calm in their eyes, the perfection of their slaughter. Now, they stood fanned out in formation, utterly still. Not a single breath wasted. Living weapons.

Then came the others.

Gurney’s lips curled — not in fear, but in the sour twist of recognition. Harkonnen harpies followed, some robed in shredded lace, others in gleaming armor that served no purpose but to seduce. Their faces were painted like dolls, but their eyes were sharp, hungry. Eyes that watched for weakness, then sank their teeth in.

Behind them came the slaves.

Not soldiers. Not courtiers. Slaves. The kind who weren’t trained for labor or information, but for pleasure.

Some of them couldn’t have been older than Paul.

Gurney’s jaw locked. He forced his eyes forward. The stink of perfume and degradation followed them like smoke, making his teeth ache. They had collars, some jeweled, others plain, all humiliating. And they moved as if they were used to being displayed — trained for it, broken into it.

The Sardaukar bowed. The harpies grinned. The slaves looked down.

Feyd’s gaze swept over the gathering, lingering on the bowed heads, the averted eyes. Then it landed on Gurney, and his lips curled into a smile that made the old scars on Gurney’s face burn with remembered pain. 

This wasn’t just a political insult. It was a message. Feyd could have sent a letter. Could’ve offered a quiet gift and stayed away. But no — he came in person, with all his horrors in tow. Came to desecrate. To gloat. To witness.

"How quaint," Feyd drawled, stepping forward with the languid grace of a predator circling wounded prey. His voice was oil-slick, dripping with false amusement. "A grape farmer playing noble—tell me, Halleck, does the stench of vinegar still cling to your hands, or have you scrubbed it raw trying to wash away your peasant stink?"

He paused, letting the insult hang in the air like the tang of spoiled wine, then tilted his head in mock contemplation. The glowglobe light caught the sharp angles of his face, turning his black smile into something jagged, dangerous.

"But no, I forget—you did rise above your station, didn’t you? From dirt-grubbing vintner to... what, exactly? A glorified bodyguard?" His gaze flicked to Paul, lingering with deliberate cruelty before snapping back to Gurney. "Ah, but perhaps I’m being unfair. After all, you have managed to secure yourself a pretty little prize."

He took another step, close enough now that Gurney could smell the spice-laced sweetness of his breath, the underlying reek of something chemical, something wrong.

"So tell me," Feyd murmured, voice dropping to a mock whisper, "did you pay for this wedding... or the boy?" He leaned in, close enough that Gurney could see the flecks of black in his pale eyes. "Or did the Atreides whore come cheap, now that his House is dust and his name is worth less than the piss in a Harkonnen latrine?"

A ripple of laughter moved through the Sardaukar. Gurney felt Paul stiffen beside him, but he kept his own expression carefully blank.

"The honor of hosting Your Imperial Majesty is payment enough," Gurney said, his voice flat.

Feyd's smile sharpened into something surgical as he turned to Paul, his gaze dragging across him with obscene leisure - lingering on the tremor in his hands, the too-quick rise of his chest, every vulnerable tell laid bare. "Atreides colors suit you, princess," he mused, voice dripping poisoned honey as he reached out to finger the soft fabric at Paul's shoulder. His nail scraped deliberately against the silver embroidery. "Like mold on spoiled fruit. The way the green clings so desperately to what's already rotting."

Feyd leaned in until his lips nearly brushed Paul’s pale cheek, his voice a venomous whisper. “How does it feel, knowing you're the heir of a once-great House, and yet here you are, whoring yourself out to some sunburned vintner in the armpit of the Imperium? Does the weight of your ancestors press down on you while you smile and play bride for a man who bottles grapes for a living?” His fingers clutched into Paul’s sleeve, pressing just hard enough to bruise the flesh beneath. "How far the mighty have fallen."

A pause—long enough to watch the shame heat Paul’s face. "Or perhaps this is what you’ve always been suited for—playing dress-up in hand-me-down silks while your betters decide your worth." He plucked at a loose thread, letting it unravel between his fingers. "Tell me, does it itch? Knowing these colors are all you have left of your House’s dignity?"

His smile turned knife-sharp as Paul’s breath caught. "Though I suppose tonight you’ll learn what it truly means to be... remade."

The double meaning hung in the air between them, thick as smoke. Feyd stepped back with a theatrical sigh. "Pity that fabric won't survive the wedding night. Then again," his eyes glittered with malicious amusement, "neither will your pride."

Paul’s breath hitched, just slightly, but he didn’t flinch. Gurney had to give him that—the boy had spine.

Feyd snapped his fingers, the sound cracking through the hall like a whip. A servant scurried forward, head bowed, bearing an ornate box of black lacquer inlaid with moonstone—Harkonnen colors. The Emperor took it with a flourish, his fingers tracing the lid’s intricate filigree before presenting it to Paul with a mocking ceremony.

"A gift," he purred, savoring the word. "For your wedding night."

The box clicked open with a sound like a lock disengaging. Inside, folded with care, was a silk gown.

This wasn’t a gown—it was a calculated insult. Drawn from its box with ceremonial care, it gleamed like surrender. The fabric, translucent white silk once reserved for Harkonnen concubines, was scandalously sheer—meant to cling to every curve, or lack thereof, highlighting the stark fact that Paul was no woman. Soft lace trimmed the neckline in delicate scallops, the bodice cut to cradle breasts he didn’t have, the skirt flared out in diaphanous layers, meant to sway and flutter with every step, as if mocking him with borrowed femininity. A matching veil lay folded beneath it, gossamer-thin and absurdly long, fit for a virgin sacrifice rather than a political groom.

Gurney’s vision swam with red. He knew this garment. Every enemy of the Harkonnen did. They called it "the Bride’s Shroud"—something the Baron had designed for conquered nobles, a final degradation before execution.

Paul’s face went bone-white. His fingers twitched at his sides, not in anger, but in something worse—recognition. He understood the message. This wasn’t just about shame. It was about erasure.

For a heartbeat, the hall was utterly silent. Then—

"You will try it on later," Feyd said, his voice light, as if suggesting a game. "Let your husband see what he’s getting."

A pause. A smile.

"If he can bear to look."

Gurney’s hands twitched at his sides. Every instinct screamed at him to step forward, to slam the box shut, to put himself between Paul and Feyd’s cruelty. But he couldn’t. Not without signing both their death warrants.

The officiator, sensing disaster, stepped forward hastily, the golden sphere of binding clutched in his hands. "The vows must begin," he murmured, voice trembling.

Feyd’s grin widened. "Of course," he said, stepping back—but not far. His Sardaukar remained at the exits, their hands resting on their blades.

Gurney met Paul’s eyes for the first time since Feyd had entered. The boy’s gaze was steady, but beneath it, Gurney saw the same fury, the same helpless rage that had kept him alive all these years.

The scars on Gurney’s face throbbed like a second heartbeat. And the ceremony began.

The officiator’s voice trembled as he put the golden sphere between them. The hall held its breath. Even the glowglobes seemed to shine lower, as if bending under the weight of what was to come. Then—the click of the sphere parting.

Inside, a cluster of black grapes gleamed with a lacquered shine, each one swollen to bursting, their juice already staining the silk lining like spilled ink. Not nourishment—spectacle. A staged offering meant to mock, not honor. A fertility rite recast as a power play.

Gurney watched, helpless, as the boy—his husband, now, or soon to be—plucked a single grape. The priest’s chanting faded into a hollow drone as Paul lifted the glistening grape between thumb and forefinger.

Paul’s hand didn’t tremble.That was worse. The steadiness of his fingers as he brought the grape to Gurney’s mouth spoke of brutal discipline, of a body trained to obey even when the soul rebelled. His eyes—those damned Atreides eyes, greener than the grass under midsummer sun—held neither resignation nor defiance, but something far more unsettling: calculation. As if he were measuring the exact weight of this humiliation.

Gurney parted his lips. The moment the grape touched his tongue, Paul hastily withdrew his fingers—more hastily than someone who maintains their composure would.

Gurney crushed the grape between his teeth, its tart burst flooding his mouth like a too-young wine.

Now it was his turn. He plucked another grape from the golden sphere, its surface slick and gleaming. It was absurdly small in his battle-worn hands, calloused from decades of swordplay. 

Paul watched him, motionless. The heat of the crowded hall had coaxed a sheen of sweat along his temple, a single bead trailing down the elegant line of his throat. His lips parted slightly, not in fear, but in quiet expectation.

Gurney hesitated. To do this slowly would be torture—a drawn-out intimacy neither of them could afford. To do it quickly would be cowardice—an admission that this moment meant something. He settled for precision.

With the careful detachment, he put the grape on Paul’s pink tongue, not intending to linger. A failed mercy. Paul’s breath hitched anyway, warm and damp against Gurney’s knuckles, sending an unwelcome spark down his spine.

Then—

A mistake.

His thumb, rough from years of gripping sword hilts, grazed Paul’s plump lower lip as he pulled away. The contact was fleeting—less than a heartbeat—but it seared through him like a brand.

Soft.

Softer than the rose petals in Halleck’s orchards, the ones that unfurled at dawn only to bruise by midday. Softer than the silk of Atreides wedding garment. Softer than anything a man like Gurney had any right to touch.

The thought came unbidden, unwelcome. His stomach twisted. This wasn’t romance. This was a transaction. A farce. A knife pressed to both their throats.

And yet—

You’re no better than Feyd. The guilt was a live wire in his chest, sparking with every ragged breath. He had sworn to protect this boy, not participate in his degradation. Not notice the way his lips yielded under the barest touch. Not wonder how they might feel under his own.

"Hurrah!"

Feyd's slow clap echoed through the hall like snapping bones. He sprawled on the throne like a bored god slumming it, one boot hooked lazily over the armrest. "What a touching performance," he purred. "The tragic virgin and his reluctant protector. I'm moved to tears—or perhaps just to laughter."

The Sardaukar chuckled on cue.

Feyd’s voice cut through the hall like a blade dipped in filth. "So—will the newlyweds be sealing the deal before the feast, or are we all pretending the boy still has some modesty left?" He gave Paul a long, deliberate once-over, eyes lingering with mock hunger. "Skinny little thing, isn’t he? Barely enough meat on him to warm a bed, let alone keep Halleck interested." He chuckled. "Careful, old man—you might snap him in half before the wine’s poured."

A ripple of laughter stirred the Sardaukar ranks again.

Paul didn’t flinch. He stood tall, his posture stiff with tension, but not fear. Gurney watched the fine tremor in his shoulders, the tight set of his mouth, the way his eyes locked on Feyd with a frozen, calculating fury. Not a boy retreating under shame—but a blade waiting for the moment to strike.

Feyd let out a theatrical sigh, lounging deeper into the throne. "But I forget myself," he drawled, tone slick with a false apology. "This is a celebration, isn’t it?" His smile widened, all edge and no warmth. "Let us feast. Though I do hope our young groom doesn’t bruise too easily. It would be such a shame if something delicate cracked before the night’s even begun."

The words floated through the hall like perfume over poison. Gurney felt the weight of them, and saw Paul absorb every syllable like a burn he would not show—yet.

***

The banquet hall of Halleck Manor should have been a place of warmth—but today, it felt like the belly of a beast.

Long tables groaned under platters of spiced game and towers of sugared fruit, all arranged with deliberate excess. The guests—lesser nobles with hunted eyes—sat stiff-backed, their laughter brittle as they avoided looking toward the high table.

Feyd lounged at the center, his throne-like chair carved from blackwood. He held a goblet between two fingers, swirling the wine inside with idle amusement.

"A toast," he announced, his voice cutting through the murmur of forced conversation.

Every eye turned to him.

Feyd’s smile was a blade. "To the happy couple." He raised the cup, then extended it toward Paul with mocking grace. "Drink, Atreides. Sweeten your tongue for your husband."

A hush fell.

The words hung like smoke over the table. Ugly. Meant to humiliate. Meant to scar.

Gurney felt his teeth grind together. He didn’t look at Feyd — didn’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, he turned just enough to see Paul.

The boy had gone still.

Not frozen — not panicked — just tight, like a wire pulled too far, like something brittle holding itself together by sheer will. Paul sat rigid in his chair, his fingers curled around his own untouched goblet. His jaw tightened, the muscle there jumping once, twice, before he forced his expression smooth.

Gurney watched from his place beside him, his own hands clenched under the table. He could see the way Paul’s throat worked as he swallowed back whatever retort burned behind his teeth. Knew, without needing to see, the way his pulse would be rabbiting beneath his skin.

Don’t, he willed silently. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

Paul reached for the cup.

Gurney saw the flush rise in Paul’s neck, saw the slight tremor in his fingers where they gripped the goblet. He was young. Still too young for this. But he didn’t drop it. Didn’t speak. Didn’t run.

Feyd was smiling that smile again — the one that made Gurney’s hand itch for a blade. He was waiting for a scene. Waiting for the boy to snap, to cry out, to prove the last of House Atreides was nothing but a sulking child dressed for slaughter.

Gurney shifted his weight, just enough to let Paul know he was there. No words. No rescue. Just presence.

And Paul moved.

He raised his cup.

Slow. Controlled. His face a mask of cold civility. Gurney felt something tight loosen in his chest.

“To the Emperor,” Paul said, clear and sharp.

He drank. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank, the wine dark as blood against his mouth. When he lowered it, his lips were stained crimson.

Feyd chuckled. Not loud. Just smug. "There. Was that so hard?"

The room began to breathe again, but it wasn’t laughter now — it was caution, watching, waiting to see if the boy would break after all.

Gurney watched Paul set the goblet down with careful fingers. His fingers brushed Feyd’s as he took it, and the Emperor’s grin widened, his thumb dragging over Paul’s knuckles in a parody of a caress. Gurney felt the scar across his own cheek twitch. He saw something pass behind the young man’s eyes — something old and bitter and hardening like forged steel.

Good, he thought.

"Careful," he heard Feyd’s words, just loud enough for Gurney to hear. "It bites."

Gurney’s nails bit into his palms, the pain a grounding anchor. He could taste copper where his own teeth had split the inside of his cheek. To speak would be death. To move would be worse. So he sat, and he watched, and he burned.

The feast dragged on, course after course of rich dishes that turned to ash in Gurney’s mouth. Feyd held court like a spider at the center of its web, spinning cruel jests and watching his guests squirm. Then, as the last platters were cleared, he rose.

"And now," he purred, "the final tradition." A snap of his fingers, and the Sardaukar moved.

They descended on Paul like carrion birds, their hands impersonal as they hauled him from his chair. He didn’t struggle—knew better, by now—but Gurney saw the way his breath hitched, the way his eyes flicked once, instinctively, toward him before he schooled his expression blank.

No. The word was a drumbeat in Gurney’s skull. No, no, no—

But there was nothing he could do.

The Sardaukar moved with the dispassionate efficiency of men executing an order they neither questioned nor relished. Four of them closed in on Paul with the ease of practiced ritual, their armored hands descending like iron claws. 

Gurney stood frozen, every muscle screaming, as the Sardaukar stripped Paul piece by piece, until he stood there naked, his bare skin exposed to the glowglobes light and the stares of hostile observers.

Then Feyd raised two fingers. A fifth Sardaukar stepped forward, cradling the Feyd’s cruel gift with a mockery of reverence—as though it were holy.

"Hold him," Feyd said.

They lifted Paul’s arms with mechanical indifference, like dressing a doll.

The gown passed over his head and clung instantly to the sweat along his skin, molding itself to the sharp planes of his frame. There was no effort to adjust or accommodate; the silk simply draped, revealing all it was meant to hide. The bodice gaped where it failed to find breasts, the fabric stretched tight across his body, drawing the eye to every detail meant to humiliate. The skirt fell around his legs in diaphanous waves, too light to conceal. 

Just the illusion of something pure wrapped around a boy paraded like a prize.

The hall was utterly silent.

Paul stood frozen, his spine a pale curve, the shadows of his ribs visible through the fabric. His arms hung stiff at his sides, his fingers trembling faintly before he fisted them. The gown clung to him like a second skin, the delicate lace at the neckline trembling with each too-quick breath. 

Gurney’s vision tunneled.

Look away.

But he couldn’t.

The fabric left nothing to the imagination—every shift of muscle beneath Paul’s skin, every hitch of his breath, the way his fingers twitched once before curling into fists at his sides. The low back of the gown plunged indecently, baring the delicate knobs of his spine, the faint dusting of freckles along his shoulders laid bare under the gaze of the entire court, looking like constellations Gurney had no right to map.

Look away, you bastard. Don’t you dare—

But God help him, he dared.

The silk draped over the lean lines of Paul’s body, catching on the jut of his hip bones, the taut plane of his stomach. It was too thin, too cruel—meant to humiliate, yes, but in this moment, under the mellow light of glowglobes, it did something worse. It revealed .

Gurney’s mouth went dry.

The way the fabric clung to the inside of Paul’s thighs, the way the lace scallops at the neckline framed the sharp cut of his collarbones. The gown was meant to mock, to strip him of dignity, but all it did was remind Gurney of things he had no business imagining—

—the weight of Paul’s body on his lap, the heat of his breath against Gurney’s throat, the way his lips might part if Gurney ever—

No.

Gurney’s nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood. The pain was a grounding force, the only thing keeping him from the edge of something dangerous.

Paul turned slightly, just enough for Gurney to catch the flutter of his pulse at his throat, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His eyes, when they met Gurney’s, were dark with something unreadable—shame, fury, or worse, understanding.

He knew. He had to know. And that was the most unforgivable thing of all.

Look away, Gurney ordered himself again. But he simply couldn’t.

Feyd circled Paul like a shark, his grin widening as he took in the effect. "Lovely," he murmured. He reached out, trailing a finger down the exposed line of Paul’s spine. "Though I fear your husband may be... overwhelmed."

A chuckle rippled through the Sardaukar. Paul didn’t react, his face a mask of perfect indifference, but Gurney saw the minute shudder that wracked him, the way his shoulders tensed as if bracing for a blow.

Gurney clenched his hands so tightly that his nails nearly broke the skin. This is how they break you, he realized, sick. Not with knives or fists, but by making you complicit in your own humiliation. 

Feyd seized Paul’s chin and tilted it upward, displaying his face to the watching crowd. He didn’t fight. Didn’t look away. His expression was carved from stone, save for the storm in his eyes.

Gurney's breath caught in his throat when Paul’s gaze found him. No tears. No plea. Just a single, blazing promise. This will not be forgiven.

Feyd turned to the crowd, spreading his arms. "The marriage bed awaits!"

The cheer that followed was ragged, forced, and the Sardaukar seized Paul’s arms and marched him from the hall.

***

The footsteps of the Sardaukar echoed behind Gurney like a death march, steady and unhurried, as if the outcome had already been carved in stone. Their presence was an insult dressed as duty—equal parts guard and executioner, making certain the farce reached its final, shame-drenched act. He could feel their eyes on his back, impersonal and expectant, as though they were waiting to tally the last humiliation.

Ahead, the marriage chamber loomed. Gilded double doors glowed in the flickering light of the suspensor lamps, the gold inlays forming clusters of vineyard grapes and intricate lovers’ knots. What might once have looked romantic—opulent—now seemed grotesque. A charade of intimacy staged for monsters.

From within: a sound. Barely audible. A shift of weight, the groan of a mattress, and a breath that snagged halfway up a throat.

Paul.

Gurney’s steps faltered.

He shouldn’t be here. Not like this. He had no right to cross this threshold. No right to take what had been bartered with threat. No right to even see Paul like that again—not after the spectacle in the hall.

And yet—

He couldn’t stop seeing it. That damned gown.

The way the sheer white silk had clung to Paul’s body, transparent and intimate, the fabric wet with sweat where it kissed the base of his spine. And Paul had worn it. Head high, jaw tight, face carved from something ancient and furious. But his hands had trembled. His lips had lost all color. And Gurney—useless, helpless Gurney—had stood there and done nothing but watch.

The memory scorched through him, shame and heat tangled together in his gut.

He wanted.

Gods help him, he wanted.

Not like this. Never like this. But the wanting was there all the same—a filthy, crawling thing buried deep, rearing up only now that everything sacred had been profaned. He hated it. Hated himself. But the truth sat heavy in his blood.

A quiet, pointed cough behind him. One of the Sardaukar. A reminder.

Gurney didn’t look back. He knew what he’d see. That faint smirk—amused, contemptuous. The gleam of sadistic pleasure in those cold eyes. The promise of punishment if he failed to perform. And behind them, behind everything, the echo of the Emperor’s honeyed cruelty still clung to his ears like oil.

“I’ll send a scribe to record the consummation. Unless you’d prefer I attend personally?”

He should’ve killed him. Should’ve drawn steel across the bastard’s throat right there in the audience chamber. But they’d had Paul—already dressed, already offered up like a lamb before the altar—and Gurney’s sword had stayed sheathed.

Coward.

The nausea crested again, rising like bile. He forced it down. He stood before the door now.

The handle gleamed, untouched. Gurney’s hand hovered over it. His fingers felt cold. Too cold. His pulse thundered in his ears, each beat screaming wrong wrong wrong.

Beyond that door, Paul waited. Stripped of name, of title, of dignity. Draped in sheer silk and veiled in mock virtue. Forced into a role no noble man should ever be made to endure.

But Paul hadn’t broken. He hadn’t begged. He had looked at Gurney. And in that gaze had been no accusation, no pleading.

Only fire. Gurney’s other hand curled into a fist.

He had faced death in every form—on blood-soaked battlefields, in the duels of the Imperial court, in the dark corridors of the Imperial palace. But no blade, no poison, no ambush had ever made him feel this sick, this hollowed out.

This terrified.

The door handle was cool against his skin, steadying and sickening all at once. A simple twist would open it. That was all. One small gesture, and everything would begin.

He could turn back.

Say he couldn’t do it. That he wouldn’t.

But the Sardaukar would drag him to Feyd. Paul would be left inside that room, alone. And the Emperor might make good on his promise to “attend personally.”

Gurney’s jaw locked.

No. That, he would not allow.

Whatever happened next, he would be the one to carry it.

He inhaled slowly, shallowly, as if drawing a final breath.

And turned the handle.

Chapter Text

Weeks had passed since the Emperor and his monstrous entourage left Chusuk. He departed without fanfare, his black ships dragging shadow and the low hum of Holtzman engines behind them. There was no final audience, no insult, no scene, for the damage had already been done.

The silence settled upon the manor like snow after a battle. 

The small court of House Halleck — retainers, distant cousins, servants — returned to their duties as if nothing had shifted. The bells rang on time. The kitchens served the meals. Couriers came and went. There was even music in the halls again, on occasion — the delicate notes of Chusuk’s balisets weaving through the air like threads of forgotten gold. And yet, everyone felt it — the unease that ran beneath the surface like an oil slick on still water.

Lord Halleck and his husband rarely spoke — at least, in front of the servants— and when they did, it was in tones too neutral, too composed, like diplomats condemned to a tedious state dinner. They dined together at the head of the long table but never lingered; they passed each other in hallways with nothing but stiff nods—no accidental touches or murmured words—just the frigid politeness of strangers bound by title rather than choice, every interaction a study in avoidance.

The Halleck household began to draw its own conclusions. Some whispered about violence — of disturbing sounds overheard on the wedding night: a choked-off scream, the rip of torn clothes, the brutal taking of what should have been given freely. Others imagined the opposite: an act of cold necessity, joyless and quiet, a ritual carried out beneath the Emperor’s gaze. The truth, as ever, lay beyond reach. But the rumors swirled, clinging to the cracks in the marble like mold. 

But Gurney ignored all the whispers and rumours. He went about his duties with that same dogged discipline: inspecting the vineyards, reading sales reports, receiving minor lords with poor manners and poorer boots. But his silences were heavier now, his temper shorter. When he trained with the men, he struck harder than usual. When he drank, it was alone. No songs, no ballads. Only the stifled grunts and the creak of the wine barrel.

His husband was even worse. Paul moved like he’d stepped outside his own skin, ate only when reminded, answered only when addressed. The servants no longer spoke of him with curiosity, or even respect. They spoke with pity—that rare, dangerous kind of pity reserved for those who had been broken. They began to step aside when he passed, bowing deeply and not meeting his eyes. His stillness had become something eerie—like glass that hadn’t shattered yet, but would.

No one knew what had happened that night. No one ever would. But every step Paul took without smiling, every time Gurney flinched at a name spoken too loudly, told them enough. The silence pressed in, and the walls of Halleck manor felt heavier than ever with all that went unspoken. 

***

The rain had settled into a steady drizzle by dawn, turning the marble courtyards of Halleck manor into dark mirrors. Paul slipped out before the servants stirred, his boots splashing through puddles as he made his way to the stables.

The stables were a relic of older times—low-ceilinged, smelling of hay and warm leather, and the smooth, worn wood. It was quieter here than in the grand halls, the only sounds the soft snuffling of horses and the patter of rain on the slate roof. This place was new to him, a refuge from the vineyards’ honeyed corridors—those twisting rows where every leaf seemed to murmur, Remember who you are.

He found an old saddle in the corner and spent over an hour brushing the dust off the mare’s coat. She was stubborn and slow and entirely uninterested in anything resembling grace, but for a moment, when he was astride her and the wind caught his hair, Paul felt something almost like the boy he had once been. On Caladan, he had raced along the sea cliffs. His cape had flown behind him, the stallions of House Atreides powerful beneath his legs, trained to respond to the faintest shift of balance or whisper of command. Here, his mount coughed and stumbled and stopped every few meters to eat grass.

He guided his mare past the manicured paths of the estate, beyond the vineyards, toward a part of the lands he had only recently discovered—the rolling pastures where Gurney kept his sheep. It was strange, how different this place felt. The vineyards were all order and calculation, but the pastures were wilder, the grass left long, the stone fences crumbling in places. The sheep moved like clouds drifting across the hills, untroubled by the rain.

He rode until the manor was just a smudge in the distance, until the only sounds were the rain and the distant bleating of the flock. For a little while, at least, he could pretend he was somewhere else. Somewhere without titles, without expectations. Somewhere he might have belonged.

As he rode, the sun struggled through the clouds, painting the pastures in weak gold. Sheep wandered the damp fields, their fleece steaming slightly where the light touched them. The land stretched out, serene and sea green, its rain-fresh earth exhaling the scent of turned soil and wet grass—a fragrance so alive it should have soothed him. But Paul might as well have been riding through a desert. His thoughts kept circling back to the wedding... and what came after.  

“Go ahead, Halleck! Do what the Emperor wants. Fuck me. Take the prize. You earned it, didn’t you?”

Paul stands in the middle of the chamber, reeling from the humiliation he has just endured, from his own powerlessness. Bitterness rises in his mouth.

Halleck is frozen by the closed door, his wedding jacket unbuttoned to the sternum. The dim light catches the salt-and-pepper hair curling at his chest, the old scars peeking above his collar. His throat works—once, twice—but no words come. The sleeves strain around his thick arms, the fabric stretched taut where he's clenched his fists. A soldier's body. A butcher's hands.

"What’s wrong? Not how you imagined defiling the duke’s son?" A wild, humorless laugh escapes Paul—hysteria clawing at his ribs.

Halleck stares at him with the weight of a condemned man, sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat, matting the salt-and-pepper hairs at his temples. His breath is a measured drag—too controlled—but the twitch in his jaw betrays him. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stands there, breathing through his nose like a bull about to charge—or a man bracing for the killing stroke. 

"Just pretend I’m one of your vineyard whores—you must be desperate by now, with that face, you fucking beast!" Paul spats, spittle flying from his lips, his body thrumming with reckless energy.

One word too many or perhaps just the right one—and something primal snaps its chains. The change comes so suddenly Paul barely registers the shift before Gurney's voice cracks through the chamber like a whip across bare flesh. "Shut your damn mouth!"

Halleck moves like a feral animal—too fast for Paul to react. His shove sends Paul sprawling onto the bed, the breath knocked from his lungs as Gurney’s weight follows, pressing him down into the mattress. Not with violence, but with the terrifying precision of a soldier who’s spent years dominating larger men.

Paul feels the heat of him first—the hot bulk of Gurney’s torso, the way he’s pinning Paul like a commander pinning a mutinous soldier. Close enough to kill. Close enough that Paul can count every ragged breath Gurney takes.

His face hovers inches away, all shadow and fury in the flickering light. His breath is hot with anger, his heavy body stinks of liquor and sweat. 

“Feyd wanted you first.”

The words land like a blow. Gurney’s voice is low, rough—not with desire, but with something far worse: cold certainty.

“You’re lucky he didn’t insist. He would’ve split you open on that marble floor with half the court watching. No preparation, no kindness—just the way they like it. He’d make sure you bled enough to stain your precious Atreides green black.”

His calloused hand grips Paul’s wrist harder as he continues.

“And when he finished, he’d have passed you to his Sardaukar. One after another, until you forgot your own name. They train for that, you know, breaking pretty things. And not just with their cocks—with knives, with shigawire, with whatever amused them. They’d have pinned you over the feast table like a cut of meat, and trust me, lad, they wouldn’t stop at one hole.”

Paul goes rigid beneath him.

“They’d have made you thank them between screams. That’s the twist—they dose you with euphoric stimms halfway through. Your body betrays you. You weep with pleasure while they ruin you. By dawn, you’d be crawling after them, begging for another taste.”

His bloodshot eyes lock onto Paul’s.

“Think you could survive that?” he hisses. The question isn’t a challenge—it’s a verdict. “Go back out there, then. See how long you last.”

No mockery or pity—just the unvarnished truth, sharp as a cleaver. A warning from a man who’s seen what Harkonnens do to pretty, defiant things.

And Paul breaks.

The fight drains out of him all at once. A sob claws up his throat, then another, ugly and wet. He curls inward, as if his body could contain the collapse.

Gurney releases him abruptly. “So the next time you wish Feyd had claimed you, remember: I’m the only reason you still walk straight.”

Since that night—since the stifling darkness of the marriage chamber, the silence between them had taken on a life of its own, thickening like a slow-spreading rot, until even the most mundane interactions became unbearable.

In the manor’s vaulted corridors, Paul found himself tensing at every echo of footsteps, his breath hitching whenever boots struck stone—half-terrified it might be Gurney rounding the corner, half-sick with something worse when it turned out to be a servant or guard instead. At meals, he fixated on the minutiae of the table—the coarse texture of bread beneath his fingers, the way light pooled in the curve of his wine glass, the lethal edge of the butter knife resting near his hand—anything to avoid lifting his gaze to the head of the table, where Gurney sat like a statue carved from old stone.

The weeks of silent tension made Paul brittle. His cheeks hollowed, shadows pooling beneath his eyes like spilled ink. Sleep became a fleeting thing, snatched in fitful bursts between the hours he spent pacing the estate like a ghost, drifting farther and farther from the manor’s polished halls. Paul found himself drawn again and again to the forgotten edges of the estate, where the manicured order of the manor gave way to nature's slow reclamation. Here, where the sheep roamed and the wind carried no whispers of the wedding, Paul could almost believe that night had never happened.

There was no comfort here, no trace of Caladan’s gentle shores or the salt-kissed breezes of his childhood. But the animals—dull-eyed sheep, the old herding dog, the fat geese that hissed at his passing—they asked nothing of him. They did not care about his title, his shame, or the things done to him. 

The memory always ambushed him here, returning with unnerving vividness: Gurney’s weight pressing him down, the ridges of old scars against his skin, the sour tang of wine on Gurney’s breath. Now, all Paul could do was bury it deep, let it fester in darkness where no light might expose his shame.

He sat cross-legged by the pasture fence, watching the sheep drift across the brown-green fields. They wandered freely, protected by nothing more than a rickety fence and a half-blind herding dog whose name he’d never learned. There was a quiet rhythm to their existence—simple, uncomplicated. Sometimes, the dog would amble over and press its wiry body against Paul’s leg, as if the universe had sent him a silent apology. Paul would scratch behind the dog’s ragged ears, fingers working through the coarse fur.

“You don’t care, do you?” he murmured. The old hound would wag its stub of a tail in response. He stared out across the land—gray hills, mud paths, sheep like whispers on the edge of vision. Here, far away from the manor and with the old dog’s head heavy on his boot, the memory began to lose its edge. The wind carried away the shame, if only for an afternoon.

The bed is too wide, too cold beneath him, the sheets stiff with unfamiliar starch, and Paul lies curled on his side like a wounded animal, his body trembling with the aftershocks of humiliation. His face is pressed into the pillow, the fabric damp with tears he can’t seem to stop, his breath hitching in ragged, uneven gasps that make his ribs ache. He can still feel it—the phantom weight of Gurney’s body pressing him down, the rough grip of his hands on Paul’s wrists, the heat of his breath against his neck as he spoke those terrible, necessary words. 

A floorboard creaks.

Paul's breath locks in his throat, his body going rigid beneath the sheets. Gurney hasn't left - of course he hasn't. The man remains a motionless shadow on the floor beside the bed. The silence between them stretches, taut as a garrote wire, until Paul can hear nothing but the hammering of his own pulse in his ears.

Then—movement. Slow. Deliberate. The floorboards groan as Gurney’s silhouette expands to fill the space above Paul's prone form. Paul's muscles coil, torn between fight and paralysis, as Gurney looms over him like an executioner considering his blade. 

Maybe he's finally tired of playing the noble captor. Maybe tonight he'll claim what the Emperor made his by right. Gurney's face remains in shadow, but Paul feels the weight of his gaze like a physical touch tracing the line of his throat, the exposed curve of his shoulder where the sheet has slipped away.

Even now, his stomach clenched remembering it. He had been terrified, yes, furious, yes, but beneath that, beneath the fear and the anger, there had been something else, something warm and traitorous curling tightly inside him when Gurney’s knee had pressed between his thighs, when his voice had dropped to that rough, warning growl.

He could still feel it: the rough grip on his wrists, the heat of Gurney’s chest against his own, the terrifying moment when fury had shifted between them. His body’s betrayal had been instant and humiliating—a traitorous flare of heat where there should only have been revulsion.That was the true horror. Not the threat of Sardaukar violence, not even Gurney’s fury—but the heat that had pooled low in his belly as calloused hands pinned his wrists. The way his pulse had throbbed in places it shouldn’t have.

Paul dug his nails into his palms.The pastures stretched on, indifferent. The sheep knew nothing of shame. 

He remembered lying there afterward—his body trembling not from the confrontation itself, but from the aftermath, from the yawning emptiness where resolution should have been. He had wanted to rupture the fragile pretense of their marriage, to drag Gurney down into the mud with him until neither could pretend anymore. But instead, he had failed spectacularly, and in that failure, revealed something far more dangerous—a vulnerable, desperate part of himself that pulsed like an open nerve, that begged for acknowledgment even as it recoiled from touch. 

It filled Paul with a fury that sat like hot coals in his chest, smoldering through every interaction. Now, whenever Gurney entered a room, Paul's body reacted before his mind could catch up: his muscles locking tight, his breath shortening, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He ached for Gurney to say something, anything—to look at him and see an equal, a rival, a man worth engaging rather than a broken thing.

But Gurney gave him none of it. He moved through their shared life with the polite detachment of a host entertaining an unwanted guest. His silence wasn't just absence—it was an active force, a void that swallowed Paul's anger and gave nothing back. And in its way, that quiet indifference cut deeper than any insult or blow ever could, because it meant Paul wasn't even worth the effort of hatred.

The questions kept gnawing at him like rats: Was Gurney’s silence disgust rather than anger? Had he felt the way Paul’s body had answered his touch? Paul burned with the need to know—even as the very thought of answers made his stomach turn to ice.

"Sleep," Gurney says, the word rough. Then he turns away—boots scraping the floorboards, leather creaking—to lower himself onto the bare floor beside the bed. No blanket. No pillow. Just the rigid posture of a soldier resigned to discomfort. The distance between them yawns wider than the chamber itself.

Paul lies motionless, attuned to Gurney's presence in the blackness: the too-even breathing of a man pretending to sleep, the restless whisper of fabric on wood that betrays his wakefulness. He shouldn’t care, should hate him. Gurney is part of this, part of the humiliation, the man who now owns him in the eyes of the Imperium. Gurney had stood silent as the Sardaukar stripped him bare—helpless to intervene without getting them both killed. He might have failed to protect Paul from humiliation, but he refused to let Paul face it alone.

Paul swallows hard, his throat tight.

"Your back," he mutters, the words barely audible.

Silence.

Then, gruffly: "What about it?"

"It’ll hurt tomorrow," Paul says, his voice thick. "Sleep here."

Another pause, longer this time. Then the sound of movement, the rustle of Gurney’s clothes as he rises. The mattress dips under his weight, the heat of his body a solid line along Paul’s back, close but not touching.

Paul doesn’t turn. But for the first time since the ceremony, the air doesn’t feel like a fist around his throat. 

Paul remembered waking that first morning to the unfamiliar warmth of another body beside him—Gurney’s broad back turned to him, the rise and fall of his breathing steady and deep. They hadn’t touched. Yet the mere presence of him—the heat radiating across the scant inches between them, the musky scent of sleep clinging to his skin—sent an unwelcome flush creeping up Paul’s neck.

He had lain there, stiff with a strange tension, caught between relief and something perilously close to disappointment. The Emperor’s departure later that morning should have brought only solace, but as he watched the last ship vanish into the sky, his stomach twisted with an emotion he couldn’t name. Gurney had risen without a word, dressing with the same brisk efficiency as any other day, as if sharing a bed with his new husband meant nothing at all.

That was the last time they had been alone in the same room.

The wedding haunted him in sleep—not the ceremony with its hollow vows, but Feyd. That knife-edge smile. The way his voice had dripped like poisoned honey, Drink, Atreides. Sweeten your tongue for your husband.

In the worst dreams, Feyd didn’t walk away. He escorted Paul to the bedroom with a hand between his shoulder blades, fingers digging into the knobs of his spine. In these dreams, Paul’s voice vanished—his throat sealed shut as if stuffed with sand. And always, always, Gurney stood watching from the shadows, his expression carved from stone.

He’d wake gasping, sheets tangled around his legs, his skin feverish with sweat and shame.

The silence between them now was worse than anger. At least rage would have been honest. Instead, Paul’s cruel words hung suspended in the air between them, while Gurney’s own warnings coiled around his ribs like barbed wire.

Think you could survive that? That wasn’t just a warning. That was the truth. A reminder of what had almost happened. Of what could still happen, if Feyd ever decided he wanted to assert his power in the flesh. And Gurney—for all his roughness, his rage—had shielded him from that.

Paul didn’t know whether to be grateful, or furious, or ashamed that he needed protecting at all.

He jerked back to awareness, his spine pressed against the sun-warmed fence, the weathered wood radiating heat through his tunic. The old herding dog lay curled in the grass next to him, its muzzle gone gray with age, its ears twitching at the occasional buzz of insects in the tall grass. The afternoon stretched lazily before him, the kind of quiet he had learned to crave—no whispers, no expectations, just the wind combing through the fields and the distant bleating of sheep.

Then the dog lifted its head. A low, rumbling bark rolled from its throat—not the sharp warning it reserved for strangers or wolves, but a gruff announcement. Paul followed its gaze to the horizon, where a rider approached at a steady trot. Even at this distance, the silhouette was unmistakable: the broad shoulders, the way he sat a saddle like it was an extension of his own body. Halleck.

Paul’s stomach tightened, but he didn’t move.

The dog heaved itself up with a grunt and ambled forward, its stub of a tail wagging as Gurney dismounted. Dust bloomed around the horse’s hooves, catching the light like gold. For a moment, Gurney simply stood there, one hand resting on the animal’s flank, the other scratching behind the dog’s ears with a familiarity that made something in Paul’s chest ache. He'd never imagined Gurney capable of such tenderness—rough fingers gentled for the sake of an old, half-blind mutt that had outlived its usefulness to anyone but his master.

Then Gurney turned toward him.

The sunlight caught the old scars on his face, turning them into silvered trails. He moved with the same deliberate pace he always did, as if every step were a decision. The dog trailed at his heels, panting softly.

Paul braced himself.

Gurney stopped an arm’s length away, close enough that Paul could smell the leather-and-sweat scent of him, the faint tang of the horse still clinging to his clothes. For a long moment, he said nothing, his gaze scanning the fields as if searching for the right words in the swaying grass.

Then: “We need to talk.”

The words landed between them like a stone dropped into still water. Paul’s fingers stilled on the fence. The dog, sensing the shift, whined softly and nudged Gurney’s hand, but this time, Gurney didn’t pet it.

Paul exhaled through his nose. Of course. He’d known this was coming. He could’ve made it easy for himself. Could’ve asked about what? Could’ve pretended he didn’t know.

Instead, he nodded once—a sharp, wordless acknowledgment—and pushed himself up from the grass where he'd been sitting. Gurney’s jaw worked. For the first time since he’d ridden up, he looked directly at Paul, his eyes dark and unreadable.

“Not here,” he said.

And Paul knew, with a cold certainty, that whatever came next would change everything.

Chapter Text

The hill rose steeper than its gentle slopes suggested from a distance. The morning's drizzle had fled, leaving the pastures to shimmer like a restless green sea beneath the newly unveiled sun. The air hung heavy with the scent of damp earth and bruised rosemary. 

The old herding dog noticed him first. From its post at Paul's feet, the grizzled creature's head snapped up. One ragged ear twitched before it unleashed a rasping bark—not a warning, but a familiar greeting that carried across the pasture.

Gurney swung down from the saddle, one hand automatically going to the dog as it barreled toward him with wheezing enthusiasm.

"Still on watch, old man?" he murmured as he scratched behind the dog's ear, his calloused fingers finding the familiar spot that made the creature's hind leg thump against the ground. The dog's tongue lolled in canine bliss, its milky eyes squinting with pleasure—a stark contrast to the silent figure sitting with his back against the fence.

Gurney had promised himself he wouldn’t come. He wasn’t about to chase his husband through open pastures like some lovesick idiot. A proper lord would send a servant. A proper husband didn’t go stomping through mud because the boy needed space. And yet, here he was—boots damp, smelling like horse and pride gone sour.

But before he could say or do anything, the clouds peeled back, tender as a veil, and suddenly— oh —the sun. It spilled over Paul in a honeyed tide, painting his skin with light.

Gurney’s chest ached. The boy—no, the man—was carved into gold by that light. Not the burnished metal of crowns, but something older, more sacred, the kind found in temples long abandoned. His skin, pale in the shade, flared with heat where the sun touched it, and every freckle across the bridge of his nose seemed arranged like constellations meant for Gurney alone to read. His lips were parted slightly—he’d been worrying them again—and the flush of it made them look soft, almost bruised.

And still, that wasn’t what undid Gurney. It was the gentle curve of Paul’s neck, the slope of his throat, the fragile geometry of a shoulder barely wrapped in black wool. The way his hair curled where it met his collar—wild, sunlit, windswept. The way he sat, held still by sheer force of will, as if motion might betray him. As if silence were the last armor he had left.

He looked like something dreamt rather than born—something meant to be seen from a distance, worshipped from below. And for one unguarded, unforgivable moment, Gurney wanted. Not with the quiet, practical want that belonged to arranged partnerships and strategic unions. No—this was something sharp and primal, something that curled low in his gut and left him standing there, hollowed out and ashamed.

Paul looked up. His eyes burned greener than Gurney's memory served—the perilous shimmer of sunlight through breaking waves. He looked straight at Gurney, and Gurney felt it like a blow—felt himself seen, measured, and found lacking.

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe properly, either. Because for the space of a heartbeat, all that remained was the unbearable beauty of the boy in front of him.

He's your husband by contract alone, Gurney reminded himself harshly, and you're gaping at him like a green boy seeing his first courtesan. Worse—Paul knew. There was no mistaking the slight tilt of his chin, the way his lashes lowered just a fraction, as if he could feel the weight of Gurney's stare like a physical touch.

The dog licked Gurney's palm, its tongue rough against his skin. The gesture felt like pity.

Gurney cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

The silence dragged on, broken only by the soft whisper of grass blades as Paul tore them apart, one by one, between his fingers. When he finally gave a nod, it was so slight it could’ve been imagined. Gurney’s hands flexed at his sides, opening and closing—no knife hilt to anchor him as Paul rose with that same controlled, effortless grace. 

"Not here," he said, the words gravel-rough.

Paul tilted his head, sunlight catching the fine bones of his face. "And what’s wrong with here?" A pause. Then, softer: "Or do you only speak to me when I’m pinned beneath you?"

A knife-twist. Deserved. The unspoken memory thickened the air between them: Paul's wrists had felt like bird bones in his grip, the bed's rhythmic protest beneath their shared weight, their mutual pretense at breakfast that neither recalled how Paul had gasped— 

"I need to show you something," Gurney said—and without waiting for an answer, turned his back on him.

They rode back without a word—Gurney ahead on his steady gelding, Paul trailing behind on the old mare, just far enough to make conversation inconvenient. A deliberate distance. 

Gurney let it stand for a while, then reined in slightly, letting Paul catch up until they rode side by side. 

"You’ve been avoiding the manor," he started carefully.

Paul’s shoulder gave a twitch, barely more than a shrug. "The sheep don’t ask questions."

"And I do?" His voice sounded hollow, even to himself.

A pause. A long one.

The wind picked up, dry and restless, whispering through the tall grass like something looking for a place to settle.

"You haven’t," Paul said at last. "Until now."

Another cut. Also deserved. How many more before Paul was done? Gurney’s fingers tightened around the reins, white-knuckled. He should’ve spoken days ago. He should’ve pushed sooner. Should’ve pursued him, cornered him the morning after the wedding, when the sting of Feyd’s jabs was fresh. Instead, he’d let days slip by like water through a sieve, each one stretching the silence thinner, making it more fragile, more dangerous to break.

"I owe you an apology," Gurney said, the words rough as unpolished stone.

Paul pulled his mare to a stop and turned to face him. For the first time since the pasture, his eyes met Gurney’s—bright and startling in the sunlight, and full of accusation. He thought Paul wouldn’t respond. Thought the boy would ride off, let that be his answer, carry on and leave Gurney shouting his apology to a field of stupid sheep. But Paul met his gaze, a surprising defiance in that small motion. 

“For which part?” 

The question hung between them, weighted. For the wedding night? For not stopping Feyd? For the fact that this marriage is a chain around their throats?

Gurney urged his gelding forward until their knees almost touched. That close, he could see the betraying flutter beneath Paul’s jaw—the fragile pulse point he traced with his thumb back then .

"All of it," he said firmly. 

Paul’s inhale was barely audible, but Gurney caught it—like he’d learned to catch every micro-expression flickering across that stunning face before the mask slammed down. Now the boy turned toward the distant shape of the manor against the sky.

"You didn’t force me into this." Paul’s voice was frayed at the edges.

"No." Gurney’s hands flexed on the reins. "Just failed to soften the blow."

That earned him a lightning-quick smirk—there and gone—before Paul murmured the truest thing either had spoken: "None of this was ever meant to be soft."

The truth of it settled between them like a third rider—unwelcome and undeniable.

Gurney shifted in the saddle, loosening his grip on the reins. “I’ve had this talk in my head a dozen times,” he said. “Every version is worse than the last. But I keep circling back to the same thing: I was wrong. On the day of our wedding.”

He hadn’t meant to say it yet—not that plainly, not that fast—but once the words broke loose, they wouldn’t stop, coming jagged and awkward like stones falling from the mouth of a cliff.

"I watched Feyd that day—every move, every foul word. The way his eyes lit up when the Sardaukar held you there for his amusement." Gurney's voice turned to gravel. "And I did nothing. Just another silent witness in a hall full of them."

The image seared itself into his mind: Paul draped in that obscene silk, the fabric clinging like liquid light, mercilessly outlining every lean curve and sharp angle. His lashes are lowered, but his eyes burn beneath them as Feyd-Rautha circles—slow, deliberate—like a butcher deciding where to make the first cut.

Gurney had stood beside him, still like a statue. A coward. He could still feel the sweat sticking his uniform to his back as Feyd leaned in, whispering something filthy. Back then, Paul didn’t react, didn’t move a muscle, and somehow that stillness had cut Gurney deeper than if the boy had screamed. He remembered thinking: Don’t escalate it. Don’t make him worse. Let the moment pass. He remembered doing nothing.

“I thought... keeping still would keep you safe,” he said aloud now. “I thought survival was enough.”

Paul gave a quiet, humorless breath. Not quite a laugh—not quite anything.

“That’s what people always say,” he murmured. “When they’re afraid to pick a side.”

That landed.

Gurney swallowed. “I don’t expect forgiveness. But I wanted you to hear it from me. That I saw it. That I let it happen. That it wasn’t right.”

Paul turned—just his head. Just enough for Gurney to catch the outline of his face in profile: jaw clenched, mouth taut, eyes unreadable.

“You let that Harkonnen filth mouth-rape me in front of half the court,” Paul said quietly. “You watched. When the Sardaukar…”

Gurney closed his eyes for the span of a breath. “I know.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it crackled between them, bitter and dense with everything unsaid.

"I never wanted this marriage," Paul said heavily. "But I didn't expect to weather it alone."

The quiet confession landed heavier than any blow. Gurney nudged his mount closer, moving as one might approach a wounded animal.

"You're not alone," he vowed.

Paul didn't pull away. But neither did the ice in his gaze thaw.

"You left me to bleed out in plain sight." The words hung between them heavily.

Gurney's hands clenched on the reins, the leather biting into his palms. "Yes." The admission scraped his throat raw. "And that night—when I pushed you down on that damned bed, when I made you listen to every vile thing Feyd might do to you—" His voice broke like shattered glass. "That was worse than letting him humiliate you. That was me participating."

The mare shifted beneath Paul, sensing the tension thrumming through his rider's body. 

"I told myself I was hardening you," Gurney continued, the words tumbling out with a hesitant urgency. "That if I made you afraid enough, you'd learn to armor yourself. But all I did was become the first man to make you fear your own marriage bed." He dragged a hand across his mouth. "There's no pardon for that."

Paul's face remained unreadable, but his breathing had gone shallow—Gurney could see the rapid flutter at his throat.

"That first night," Gurney pressed on, relentless now that the truth was finally free, "when Feyd had the Sardaukar hold you for the court's amusement—I should have cut through every last one of them. Should have painted those walls with their entrails until—"

"Until what?" Paul's voice was dangerously quiet. "Until you got yourself killed beside me? Until they made me watch as they peeled the skin from your bones?"

The image struck Gurney silent. Paul's eyes burned with an intensity that bordered on feverish.

"You think I wanted that?" Paul demanded. "Your corpse as my wedding gift?"

Gurney's breath came hard. "I thought—"

"I know what you thought." Paul's mare sidestepped nervously as he leaned forward. "That fear was armor. That cruelty could be kindness if it came from your hands." His lips twisted. "But you forgot one thing."

Gurney waited, his pulse hammering in his throat.

Paul's voice dropped to a whisper. "I was already afraid. Had been since they told me I'd be given to a man who'd fought my father's wars before I could walk." He exhaled sharply. "What I needed that night wasn't another enemy. Wasn't even a protector." The mare tossed its head as Paul gathered the reins. "I needed someone to stand beside me. Not over me." 

Gurney’s world narrowed to this moment, to this man who'd been handed to him like a sacrificial lamb and still found the strength to bare his teeth.

"You're right." The words tasted like ashes, but he met Paul's gaze without flinching."There's something waiting for you at the manor."

Paul's sidelong glance was pure skepticism. "More pretty words?"

“No,” Gurney said. “An apology.”

Paul studied him for a long moment, the wind tugging at his dark curls. Then, with a quiet click of his tongue, he urged the mare forward—past Gurney, toward home. But not before Gurney caught the slight nod. The barest acknowledgement.

It wasn't forgiveness. But it was a beginning.

***

The soft rain of morning had long since moved on, leaving the land rinsed and radiant beneath the midday sun. As they rode through the lower pastures, the air felt sharp and clean, laced with the green sweetness of crushed grass and the earthy bite of wet soil. Steam rose from the ground in ghostly tendrils, carrying the rich petrichor of rain-soaked earth. Each blade of grass stood tall, crowned with dewdrops that caught the sunlight and tossed it into tiny rainbows with every step their horses made. 

Gurney guided them toward the training paddock where the groom waited with the stallion. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the exact moment Paul saw the horse—the slight stiffening of his shoulders, the arrested breath, the way his fingers went still on the reins.

The horse stood tall, his obsidian coat catching the light like polished onyx, not merely dark but deep, a black so rich it seemed to swallow the sun and reflect it back as liquid midnight. Every muscle beneath that gleaming hide was taut with restrained power, his shoulders broad, his neck arched in a perfect curve. His thick mane cascaded like ink spilled over his crest, and his eyes—dark as a starless sky—gleamed with an intelligence that bordered on defiance.

The stallion shifted—just a subtle roll of muscle beneath that gleaming black hide—and Gurney recognized the coiled precision of something bred to outpace the wildest winds. Its nostrils flared as it caught Paul’s scent, ears snapping forward with predatory focus. Then the stallion threw its head, forelock whipping, revealing the untamed edge beneath its polished bearing. This was no placid mare. This was a king among horses.

Gurney didn’t need to glance at Paul to know he’d seen it too. The way his mare suddenly stilled, ears rigid with alertness, told him everything. That frozen silence between man and horse—the recognition of something formidable.

“This old mare you’re riding,” Gurney said, nodding toward the swaybacked chestnut—steady, mild-eyed, and clearly long past her prime. “She’s not exactly built for long rides. Why her?”

Paul’s fingers tightened slightly on the reins. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, quietly: “She doesn’t care that I’m Atreides. Just that I bring apples.”

Gurney huffed, soft and almost fond. “Well,” he said, “now you’ve got one that’s yours.”

Paul turned to him sharply. “What?”

“He’s clever,” Gurney said. “Not skittish. A bit proud. You’ll get along.”

Paul's eyes widened in awe as he took in the magnificent black stallion before him. The horse's muscles rippled beneath its shiny coat and its dark, intelligent eyes seemed to meet his own with a challenge.

“He’s... too fine,” he said finally. “Too good to waste on a political husband.”

“That’s not what this is,” Gurney said. “It’s not a political gift. It’s an apology.”

Paul blinked—slow, uncertain. 

“I can’t undo what happened,” Gurney added. “But I can give you something that’s yours. Something no one else touched, no one else claimed. You ride when you want. Where you want. No guards. No questions.”

The stallion chose that moment to shake out his mane, obsidian strands catching the light. Paul’s mare snorted, shifting in place, but Paul remained still—rigid but composed, save for the faint flutter at his temple that Gurney had learned to read as tension barely held in check. Gurney dismounted without a word, his boots landing softly in the dust. He gave his gelding a quiet pat before passing the reins off to the groom.

After a moment, Paul followed suit. He swung down from the saddle with deliberate care and handed over the mare’s reins, his attention already fixed on the stallion. He stepped forward—just one step—and the black horse turned toward him, one ear twitching, alert but unafraid. Paul raised a hand, slow and open, every movement quiet and measured. The stallion didn’t shy. He watched. Waited. And after a long breath, he let Paul’s fingers rest lightly against his muzzle.

“Does he have a name?” Paul asked softly.

“No,” Gurney said. “I thought you should be the one to choose it.”

Paul said nothing. But his shoulders eased, just barely. He stroked the stallion’s neck, fingers trailing lightly over the satin-dark hide.

“Why this horse?” he asked. “Why now?”

Gurney shifted beside him. “Because I see how tightly you hold yourself. And because sometimes, when you look at the horizon, it’s like you’re trying to remember what it felt like to run.”

Paul’s hand stilled.

“You could’ve said all that,” he murmured. “With words.”

Gurney’s voice was low. “I thought maybe this would say it better.”

They stood like that for a long moment—the stallion between them, sunlight pooling liquid gold on its glossy hide. 

Paul offered no thanks in words. But when he turned, his fingers trailing through the horse's silky mane, he murmured: "He's Duncan now."

The name hung in the still noon air, sharper than the cicadas' drone. Gurney caught himself studying the way Paul's fingers lingered on the horse's neck—not assessing the animal, but remembering something. Someone.

"Good strong name," he offered neutrally. Then, because he couldn't stop himself: "An Atreides swordmaster, wasn't he?" 

Gurney noted how Paul’s fingers—pale as bleached bone in the sunlight—twitched against the horse’s dark coat. For a moment, he feared he'd overstepped—but the ghost of a smile touched those soft, sinful lips. 

"Duncan Idaho. The bravest of us all."

The words hovered between them—delicate as a candle flame in cupped hands. Gurney caught his breath, wary of disturbing this rare moment with his soldier's bluntness. When he finally trusted himself to speak, his voice was low and steady: "Then he honors the name."

"Young Master wants to ride him now?" The groom’s voice broke the fragile silence between them. Paul didn't answer immediately. Instead, Gurney watched those sea-glass eyes flick toward him. Gurney gave a single nod.

"Go ahead."

Only then did the groom move, his calloused fingers making quick work of the saddle as Paul stood watching. 

"Easy now, my lord," the groom murmured as he tightened the girth. “This horse is no beginner’s mount. He’ll punish you for being careless.”

Paul reached out, his fingers hovering just above the stallion's neck. A tremor ran through the animal's muscles—not fear, but recognition. As if some long-awaited meeting was finally coming to pass.

Gurney folded his arms, observing how the sunlight glinted in the fine hairs on Paul’s forearm as his hand touched the horse. The stallion exhaled sharply through his nose, but didn't shy away. 

"Like calls to like," Gurney muttered under his breath.

The groom shot him a knowing look before stepping back, leaving Paul standing there with the reins in hand and something dangerously close to wonder breaking through his usual reserve.

“He’ll suit you,” Gurney said, stepping back to give them space. His voice came out rougher than he intended, the words scraping against something tender in his throat.

Paul didn’t answer. But Gurney saw the way his shoulders squared, the minute tightening of his jaw. There was no hesitation in his movements as he swung up into the saddle—just that fluid, effortless grace that spoke of a lifetime in the saddle, of muscles trained to respond before thought could interfere. The stallion shifted beneath him, a ripple of power testing the weight, the balance, the intent. Then, as if satisfied, he stilled completely.

A perfect understanding. And then they were off.

Gurney stood rooted, breath trapped in his lungs, watching horse and rider blurred into one seamless force of nature.

The stallion moved like a storm given form—hooves striking the ground with such power that clods of rain-damp sand erupted in their wake. Paul leaned into the motion, his body fluid as water, his hands light on the reins. There was no hesitation in him, only the raw, unguarded truth of muscle and speed, of wind whipping through dark curls, of the stallion's mane lashing like a banner of war.

Gurney had seen Paul endure humiliation with a spine of pure adamant. But this—this was something else entirely. This was Paul unbound, his laughter stolen by the wind but written plainly in the arch of his back, the reckless tilt of his shoulders. For the first time since they had come to this damned planet, he looked alive.

And Gurney—Gurney was drowning in it.

The stallion took a tight turn, his hindquarters bunching with power, and Paul shifted with him effortlessly, his lean thighs flexing beneath the fabric of his trousers. Sunlight caught the sweat-slick line of his throat, the flush of exertion high on his cheeks. He was beautiful like this, not in the composed, untouchable way of court, but in the manner of wildfire—unpredictable, untamable, real.

Gurney’s nails bit deeper into his arms. He had no right to this sight, no claim to the way his pulse roared in his ears, the way his mouth went dry. But God help him, he couldn’t look away.

He rides like he’s still on Caladan. The thought struck Gurney like a blow to the ribs, sudden and bruising. He could almost see it: the spray of saltwater catching in Paul’s hair as he galloped along the cliffs, the way the sea wind would have whipped color into his cheeks, the echo of his laughter swallowed by the crash of waves against rock. Caladan had been more than home to Paul; it had been a living, breathing part of him. The damp in the air, the green of the hills, the endless sigh of the tide—all of it woven into his bones in a way Chusuk could never replicate.

Gurney had never been one for sentiment and yet, as he watched Paul now, something unfamiliar coiled tight in his chest—sharp, insistent, unwelcome.This was the man he’d married—not for love or alliance—but because the Guild bank had finally called in its debts, and House Atreides had run out of favors to trade. In the end, all they had left was their only son. A bond forged not in strategy or affection, but in desperation. Minor House Halleck had the credits, House Atreides had Paul. 

On the day they wed, Paul had stood beside him like a statue carved for mourning—elegant, cold, untouched, looking every inch the sacrifice. Gurney remembered the eerie stillness of him, as if he'd rehearsed every breath. The way the light sketched out the fine bones of his face, how his lashes—dark and too long—cast thin, inky shadows over his cheeks. He had looked like something distant and sacred. Unreachable. 

But here, with the wind tearing at his clothes and the stallion’s power surging beneath him, Paul was free—it was the only word for it. His spine straightened, his head tipped back just slightly, his mouth softening into something perilously close to a smile.

Gurney’s chest ached.

By the time Paul circled back, the stallion’s sides heaved with exertion, his coat darkened with sweat. Paul himself was flushed, his cheeks stained pink, his eyes alight with a brilliance Gurney had never seen before. His lips were slightly parted, his breath coming uneven from the sheer, giddy rush of it. For one suspended moment, he looked—too young. Not a duke’s heir or a bargaining chip of a husband, but only a boy who had, for the first time in too long, remembered what it felt like to be alive.

Then, like a door slamming shut, the awareness returned. Paul’s shoulders tensed, his lashes lowering just enough to shutter that fleeting vulnerability. He dismounted with deliberate care, his hands lingering on the stallion’s neck as if seeking an anchor. When he spoke, his voice was steadier than it had any right to be.

“He’s—” A pause. Gurney could see the exact moment Paul’s mind caught up with his pulse, the way he weighed each syllable before letting it free. “Perfect.”

The world narrowed to this: Paul Atreides haloed in afternoon gold, his wind-tangled curls catching the light. He stood with one hand buried in the stallion's dark mane, his chest still rising and falling with the aftermath of their ride. Sunlight traced the elegant line of his throat where his collar had slipped, revealing the faint sheen of sweat glistening at his pulsepoint - a tiny betrayal of the wildness he'd just unleashed, now carefully being reined back in.

Gurney's mouth went dry.

"Aye," he managed, the word scraping raw from his throat. "That he is."

When Paul turned, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips, something vital in Gurney's chest twisted dangerously. This was something rare and unguarded—sunlight through stained glass after years of shadows.

Gurney's gaze fell to the way his sweat-darkened shirt clung to the lean muscles of his torso. To those deceptive hands—delicate-looking but strong enough to control half a ton of prime horseflesh without visible effort. Every detail burned itself into Gurney's mind with startling clarity: the quivering hitch of his breath, the rise and fall of his chest, the sweat-damp fabric stretched over the stiff peaks of his nipples.

No witnesses. No prying eyes. Just this suspended moment where Gurney could finally look his fill without pretense.

Paul's eyes met his—that impossible green darkening with something like recognition. The air between them thickened, weighted with things neither dared name. Gurney's fingers twitched at his sides, craving contact even as his mind screamed restraint. The scent of warm horsehide and sunbaked dust wrapped around them, intimate as a shared breath.

In that endless instant, a damning truth settled between them: hunger ignored does not mean hunger extinguished. Some fires merely banked their coals, waiting for the right breeze to flare back to life.

And oh, how this one burned.

"Gurney."

Just his name, nothing more. Yet the way it fell from Paul's lips—soft, weighted, unbearably intimate—sent a jolt through Gurney's body like a live wire pressed to bare skin. His pulse roared in his ears. Every instinct screamed at him to close the distance between them, to—

Gurney took a sudden step back. "The ledgers," he blurted, his voice traitorously rough. "We're overdue on feed deliveries from the southern plains."

Paul's brow furrowed slightly, that razor-sharp mind undoubtedly parsing the obvious lie—the estate steward handled such matters, not the head of the House. But he said nothing, merely inclined his head in that infuriatingly perfect Atreides manner.

Gurney didn't wait for further acknowledgment. He turned and strode toward the manor, each step quicker than the last, as if he could outpace the heat crawling up his neck. By the time he reached the stone stairwell leading to the family quarters, his breath came in ragged gasps that had nothing to do with exertion.

The heavy oak door of his chambers slammed behind him with finality. Gurney stood frozen in the sudden silence, back pressed against the wood as if barricading himself against his own thoughts. The room smelled of beeswax and aged wood, the familiar scents offering no comfort.

His gaze landed on the carved mahogany wardrobe across the chamber. Before reason could intervene, he crossed to it in three long strides and yanked the doors open.

The scent hit him first—that faint, clean aroma he'd come to recognize as uniquely Paul's. Not the perfumed oils nobles favored, but something simpler: sun-warmed skin, the crisp herbal soap from Caladan he stubbornly continued to use, the barest hint of leather and ink.

There, nestled between his own tunics, hung the ivory wedding nightgown. Fine Richese silk, gossamer-thin. Gurney remembered with painful clarity how the fabric had glowed in the light, translucent as sea foam, clinging to Paul's body that awful night.

His calloused fingers trembled as they closed around the delicate fabric. The silk caressed his sword-roughened skin as he drew it from the wardrobe. Without conscious thought, he brought it to his face, inhaling deeply and stepping toward the bed.

The scent flooded his senses—not just soap and skin, but the faint metallic tang of the nervous sweat Paul had shed that night, the waxy residue of ceremonial oils. Memory superimposed itself over reality: Paul's wide green eyes in the dim light, the rapid flutter of his pulse visible at his throat, the way his breath had hitched when—

Gurney's free hand moved of its own accord, palming the aching hardness beneath his trousers. A shudder wracked his frame as his fingers traced the outline of his erection through the fabric. This was madness. Worse than madness—it was betrayal of every oath he'd ever sworn.

Yet when he closed his eyes, all he saw was Paul in the paddock—sunlit and breathless, that rare, unguarded smile flashing like lightning across his face. The image burned brighter than shame.

With a groan that was equal parts prayer and profanity, Gurney undid his belt. The nightgown slipped from his grasp to pool in his lap as he tugged his trousers down, the contrast between delicate silk and his own battle-scarred thighs almost obscene.The cock filled his palm, a slick, living weight—hot as a brand and just as punishing. Precum made the glide obscenely smooth, that first touch sending wildfire racing up his spine, the pleasure honed razor-sharp by the forbidden nature of his fantasy. Every nerve sang with it, the shame only feeding the desperate hunger coiling in his gut.

He fisted the nightgown tighter, crushing the delicate silk against his lips. The fabric still carried that faint, maddening trace of Paul—a scent that made his dick throb greedily. His other hand worked his length with rough urgency, the first full stroke from weeping tip to root short-circuiting his mind entirely. A broken groan escaped him, instantly smothered in the folds of stolen silk. The contrast was exquisite: the delicate fabric against his mouth, the brutal grip around his cock, the way his hips stuttered into the friction like some green boy untouched rather than a battle-hardened warrior.

His traitorous mind conjured Paul with cruel precision—the way his young husband had lain spread beneath him, trembling and pliant as a snared fawn, an offering utterly surrendered to his touch. The memory alone made his cock jerk in his grasp, a thick bead of wetness smearing across his thumb. He imagined a different version of that cursed night: Paul not turning away in disgust, but pressing closer. Paul’s wild paddock energy distilled into something darker, his sweat-curled hair sticking to his forehead, that perpetually-bitten mouth parting around Gurney’s name not in anger but in—

The fantasy unraveled him, stoking the fire even higher. He didn’t care. He was beyond caring, caught between the desperate need for release and the even more desperate need to prolong this sinful communion. His heavy balls tightened and drew up against his body, tensing in anticipation of release. His rough hand fisted around his throbbing shaft, jerking with punishing urgency—each stroke raw, brutal, too harsh to bring pleasure, too frantic to offer release. The violent heat swelled inside him, coiling tighter and tighter, ready to erupt. His breath caught, throat burning with ragged gasps, his hips bucking helplessly into his own grip. Then—in that suspended moment before the fall—Paul's face materialized behind his eyelids: solemn lips, wounded eyes, etched into his consciousness with cruel clarity.

Release tore through him with brutal force, searing every nerve in its path. His body arched taut as a bowstring, muscles locking, a mangled cry tearing from his throat as he spilled over his knuckles in thick stripes, ruining the silk still twisted between his fingers. His muscles clenched mercilessly, trembling as the climax dragged through him, wave after relentless wave, until he collapsed against the sheets, his breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps, body boneless and slick with sweat, the phantom weight of Paul pressing him into the mattress—a visceral illusion so real he could almost feel the heat of that slender frame.

Then reality crashed back in. The stickiness on his stomach. The crumpled nightgown still pressed to his face. The hollow ache where fantasy had been.

Gurney collapsed back onto the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes. The scent of sex and shame hung thick in the air, mingling with Paul's fading aroma on the silk now mixed with the stench of his own cum. He should burn the damned thing. Should ride out tonight and never return. Should fall on his sword like the dishonorable wretch he was.

Instead, when his breathing finally steadied, he found himself folding the soiled garment with trembling hands, tucking it carefully beneath his pillow. The guilt and self-loathing would come later, he knew. The vows to never touch himself to such thoughts again.

But for now Gurney Halleck allowed himself one stolen moment of truth: he wanted his husband. Not the political alliance, not the carefully negotiated peace between their houses—the man. The beautiful, brilliant, infuriating man who had somehow become the axis upon which his world turned.

And that, more than any carnal sin, was what truly terrified him.

Chapter Text

“Again,” Gurney said, his voice low and rough, slicing through the morning stillness like a drawn blade.

The sun spilled molten gold across the training yard, making the air above the packed earth shimmer. Dust rose with every step Paul took, curling around his boots, clinging to the sweat-damp skin at his nape. He lunged forward. The practice blade carved through the air with a sharp whistle and struck the dummy in the gut—a solid, meaty thud. The padding split, spilling pale wool like seafoam onto the trampled dirt. Paul stepped back, chest heaving, heart pounding a furious rhythm against his ribs, waiting—for acknowledgment, for correction, for Gurney’s voice to come again.

Paul dragged the sleeve of his tunic across his brow, smearing sweat and grit. “I split it clean,” he said, a flicker of defiance slipping into his voice, unbidden.

“A clean kill makes for poor practice,” Gurney said, closing the distance with a few deliberate steps. His boots scraped the dirt as he lunged—blade flashing up, scarred and pitted from years of use. Steel met steel with a low, dangerous hum, the clash vibrating up Paul’s arms.

It had become a ritual, though Paul still hadn’t understood quite how it had begun. Perhaps it was the stallion that marked the shift, the subtle crack in whatever brittle thing stood between them. That day, when Gurney had offered Duncan, something unspoken had begun to uncoil— not a thaw, Paul thought, not yet, but a hairline fracture, like ice groaning over a river that ran too fast and too dark beneath the surface.

Since then, Paul had ridden every dawn, alone with Duncan beneath the pale light, no guards or stewards, only the sound of hooves and the stallion’s breath puffing like steam into the morning air. It had been his sanctuary, a place where he could be just a boy astride a horse, not a husband, not a pawn in a game whose rules shifted like sand underfoot.

But it was on one of those mornings—when the mist still curled low over the fields, silvering the air—that he had heard the rhythmic thud of blade meeting wood, echoing sharp and steady from the training yard. Drawn by the sound, Paul had turned from the path to the stables and found himself staring through the haze at Gurney.

Shirtless, sweat slicked down the ridges of his back, catching in the dips of old scars and the ropey lines of muscle coiled beneath sun-darkened skin. His movements were brutal, efficient—no wasted steps, no extraneous flourishes—just the relentless drive of a man who fought because he knew the cost of hesitation. Gurney’s breath came in sharp, clipped gasps, the old scar on his cheek stark and pale against the darker skin, knife marks along his ribs pale reminders of debts paid long ago.

Something twisted inside Paul at the sight—sharp, low, and slow-burning—leaving his mouth dry and his thoughts scattered. He had trained with warriors before, studied under the finest bladesmen of Caladan, but this was different. This was not a performance. This was violence rendered intimate, stripped bare of artifice, a dance honed in blood and necessity. Gurney fought like a man who measured pain not in theory but in the marrow of his bones.

Then Gurney had frozen, sword tip dipping slightly, and turned. Their eyes had met across the haze, breathless and raw. For a heartbeat, the air between them pressed close, heavy with something unnamed—vast, unspoken, and alive beneath the skin like the warmth of a touch that hadn’t yet happened.

Gurney had wiped the back of his hand across his brow, the gesture almost rough, and lifted his sword in silent challenge.

Paul had stepped forward, taking a spare blade from the training table.

The first time their blades had crossed, Paul had assumed it was a test—a game of power, a reminder that this man could put him in his place with a twist of his wrist. But Gurney had said nothing, only corrected his grip with a touch that lingered a fraction too long, breath ghosting against Paul’s cheek, before stepping back to wait. When Paul had struck first, Gurney’s response had been swift, brutal—a blow so precise it left a deep ache lingering in his arm for hours after.

And yet—Paul had come back the next morning. And the one after.

Their sessions had become a language of their own, a conversation carried in the slide of steel, the rasp of breath, the subtle shift of weight as Gurney’s calloused hands guided Paul’s body into alignment with a touch that was never quite impersonal.

Now, Paul watched Gurney roll his shoulders—a habitual motion, as though shaking off ghosts too old to forget—and felt a flush of heat crawl up his spine. His grip on the practice blade tightened, pulsing a staccato beat beneath his skin.

“Again,” Gurney murmured, the word low, a quiet thread of challenge—and the dance resumed.

Steel met steel with a sharp, singing clash, sparks flying. Paul moved with the liquid grace of Atreides training, every feint and pivot precise, but Gurney was relentless, his blade carving through the air with the surety of a man who had long since stopped fighting for beauty and fought only to end things.

Their swords locked, hilts trembling, and Paul felt the heat of Gurney’s breath on his face, the weight of him pressing closer, an accidental touch— or not? —as Gurney’s knee nudged his thigh.

“You’re holding back,” Gurney said, his voice low, too close.

Paul’s lips curled, breath catching. “Worried I might land a real hit?”

Gurney’s answering smile was sharp and knowing. A sudden, fluid move sent Paul stumbling, balance gone in a flash, until his shoulders hit the training dummy with a dull thud. Gurney followed, stepping in close, his forearm braced across Paul’s collarbone, pinning him, the weight of his body a silent, undeniable threat.

“You’re quick,” Gurney said, voice rough, almost a growl. “But you fight like you’re in the practice yard.” His free hand slid down Paul’s arm, fingers adjusting his grip, thumb tracing over the pulse hammering at his wrist. “Out there, hesitation is death.”

Paul’s breath hitched, the heat of Gurney’s skin bleeding through every inch of contact. He could smell salt and dust, the faint fruity tang of the rachag stimulant Gurney drank before training, and something darker, something sharper that coiled low in his belly, and now was uncoiling in slow, dangerous spirals.

“Then show me how it’s done out there,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

For a heartbeat, Gurney’s eyes darkened, something raw flickering beneath the surface—then—

“My lord!”

The steward’s voice cracked across the training yard like a lash, shattering the moment. Gurney jerked back as if burned, the tension between them snapping like a bowstring stretched too tight.

Paul stayed pressed against the dummy, chest heaving, pulse pounding in his ears.

“The batch for the Landsraad summit,” the steward panted, bowing low. “It’s been loaded at the spaceport. The quartermaster requires your seal.”

Gurney’s jaw clenched, the mask slipping back into place—cool, controlled, the politician, the merchant lord.

“I’ll come,” he said curtly, turning on his heel.

He didn’t look back at Paul as he strode away, but Paul saw the tension in his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip on the hilt of his sword, the slow, careful way his breath caught and was forced quiet again.The man himself was an enigma—scars that spoke of brutality, hands that handled a sword like a master and a grapevine like a lover.  

The fresh morning breeze, cool against his skin and carrying the faint scent of vineyards just beginning to stir with life, slipped beneath Paul’s collar and made him shiver in spite of himself. He found his thoughts circling back to the same question he’d turned over in his mind too many times already. How had this man—this stern, guarded lord of a minor house, this merchant—managed to carve not just a profitable economy out of Chusuk’s rough soil, but something else, something that felt, for all its rough edges, like a place where you might actually want to stay?

Weeks ago, he would have scorned the idea of finding anything likable here, on this backwater planet that had once seemed as remote and unyielding as the exile it represented. Now, though—now, he was noticing things he couldn’t quite push away.

The evening light that fractured through the stained-glass windows, spilling shards of amber, vermeil, and sea-green across the white marble walls of his chambers; the air that itself seemed to carry the scent of blossoming fruit trees and ripening grapes; the pastures, endless and green, rolled out in soft undulations, peaceful and almost hypnotic in their quiet; the low hum of evening insects rising in the fields; the faint sounds of Gurney’s baliset, threading through the manor’s walls on those nights when the weight of the title Lord Halleck seemed too much for one man to carry. The music was simple, a melody stretched thin but still reaching out, but it had become, somehow, a threadbare comfort that Paul resented himself for seeking; it grounded him in a place he’d never meant to let slip beneath his skin, and yet it had, without permission, without warning.

Paul hated that he’d begun to memorize the rhythm of it all. Hated more that he didn’t truly hate it. This was Gurney’s domain, Gurney’s legacy, forged through blood, sweat, and unyielding determination. Paul had noticed how the workers gazed at the leader of the House—not merely with respect, but with something more intense. Loyalty and devotion.

What did you endure to earn that?

The question unsettled him. He shouldn’t care. This was still a cage, he reminded himself, no matter how many small freedoms Gurney granted him. Still a gilded prison built from necessity, not choice.

And yet.

***

The stables were quiet, thick with the warm scent of hay and leather, the soft rustle of hooves shifting in straw, and the distant, lonely call of nightbirds echoing across the fields. Paul slipped inside after the grooms had left, the heavy door creaking shut behind him, sealing him into the hush of shadows and lamplight. In his palm, the apple weighed heavy—a little present for his stallion, though the thought still felt foreign. He let his fingers brush along the rough grain of the stall door, the wood worn smooth by years of use, before stepping into the dimly lit space—

And froze.

Gurney stood there, one hand resting against Duncan’s powerful neck as the black coat gleamed faintly in the lantern’s glow. The stallion nosed at Gurney’s broad shoulder, snuffling with a soft breath. Gurney's fingers drifted idly through the horse's mane, his movements smooth and tender even as tension coiled through his frame. A lantern flickered nearby, painting the scar on his cheek in gold and shadow.

For a heartbeat, neither moved. Then Gurney’s gaze dropped to the apple in Paul’s hand.

"He likes them sliced," he said, breaking the silence.

The words hung between them, simple and disarming. Paul turned the apple in his hand, slowly. “Do you come here to feed him? Or to check if I do?”

Gurney met his gaze this time, and didn’t look away. “Does it matter?”

Paul stepped toward the stall. “I think it does.”

Gurney stepped back a little—just a shift in weight, a small concession—but Paul noticed it. 

“You’re up late,” he said.

“So are you,” Gurney replied quietly.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, setting the apple down. “I kept thinking about that stallion. Why you gave him to me.”

He hesitated for a beat, his pulse a faint drum against his ribs, before he spoke, his voice softer than he intended. 

“So why did you?”

Gurney’s hand paused, fingers tightening slightly in Duncan’s mane before he resumed stroking it. “Line’s bred from my grandfather’s war mare,” he said after a moment, his tone stripped of ornament, just the bare bones of truth. “Not a show animal. Meant for endurance. For battle.”

Paul stepped closer, drawn by the quiet intensity in Gurney’s voice, by the scent of sweat and leather, of warm animal. “That’s not an answer,” he murmured, the words slipping past his lips, tangling in the space between them.

Gurney stared at him. The lamplight caught the silver threading his beard, the dark, unflinching weight of his gaze anchoring Paul in place. “You looked at horses,” he said, voice low and rough, “like you hadn’t looked at anything else here. Like you wanted to be free.”

Paul’s throat tightened, pulse stuttering beneath his skin. Had it been that obvious? The quiet longing, the ache to escape the weight of his name, the cold cage of duty.

“Is this just another leash?” he asked, letting the challenge in his words ring clear. 

Gurney’s mouth twitched, though it wasn’t quite a smile. “If you choose to ride,” he said gruffly, “no one will stop you. Not even me.”

The words settled between them, heavy as a confession. Paul stood close enough to feel the low, steady heat radiating from Gurney’s body. He needed only to reach out to trace the pale scars along his arms: traces of Harkonnen violence, of battles fought and endured, each scar a silent testament. For a moment, Paul imagined pressing his palm to them, to all that history, and not pulling away. A quiet weight settled in him—curiosity laced with something softer, something that felt dangerously close to understanding.

Gurney’s eyes flicked down, just for a breath, to his mouth.

Paul froze, pulse roaring in his ears, the air between them thickening, stretching taut as a bowstring.

Then the stallion shifted, stamping softly, breaking the spell. Gurney’s breath caught, sharp and shallow, and he stepped back, shoulders straightening, his posture slipping back into careful control.

"You're holding something back." The words left Paul's mouth before he could stop them, striking him with their certainty as lamplight flickered across Gurney's tensed jaw. "I can see it in your eyes."

Gurney's fingers stilled in the stallion's mane. "Nothing that concerns you."

"It does now." Paul said, unfazed by the sudden chill in Gurney’s voice. "We're bound together, whether either of us likes it."

A muscle jumped in Gurney's cheek as he turned. "Marriage vows don't entitle you to my ghosts, boy."

The insult should’ve hit harder. But Paul kept going. "Not asking for ghosts. Just one truth. One thing you're carrying alone."

Gurney let out a sharp huff as the stallion tossed its head, sensing the tension. "Some weights can't be shared."

"Try me." Paul held his ground, voice dropping to a whisper. "Or do you really think I'm so useless?"

Gurney's control cracked—just for an instant. Paul saw it in the way his throat worked, in the sudden grip on the horse's mane. "Damn you," Gurney exhaled—half exasperation, half amusement. "Come to my study tomorrow—if you still want this conversation after you’ve slept on it."

Paul didn't blink. "I'll be there at first light." A beat. "With coffee."

That earned him a sharp look—almost surprised. Gurney turned away, but not before Paul caught the faintest softening around his eyes. "Stubborn Atreides," he muttered, but the edge was gone from his voice.

***

The study held the quiet musk of aged leather and old books when Paul entered, his footsteps muffled by thick carpets. Steam curled from the cups in his hands, its rich aroma cutting through the room's stillness. He'd brought it black just as he'd observed Gurney drink it during their shared dawn encounters, when the household still slept. He set the cup down on the edge of Gurney’s desk with quiet precision, the faint clink of ceramic on wood punctuating the hush.

Gurney looked up from his desk, the light falling across his face. His eyes flicked to the cup, then to Paul’s face. A pause. Then, in that gruff, low voice that always seemed to hold more weight than the words themselves: “You’re up early.”

“I keep my promises,” Paul said, stepping closer, resting his hip against the edge of the desk. He watched the way Gurney’s scarred fingers twitched toward the cup, hovering just above it as if expecting it to vanish, before he wrapped his hand around the warm ceramic. The gesture—a man used to denying himself small comforts—struck Paul harder than he wanted to admit.

The silence between them stretched as Gurney took a slow sip, the line of his throat working, the faint sheen of sweat still lingering at his collar from whatever predawn drills he’d forced himself through. Paul found himself staring at the details: the way the thin, silver strands of Gurney’s hair caught the light, the shadows etched by old scars, the calluses on his knuckles. The realization struck him like a slap—he was cataloging these details now. Not just observing, but noticing.

Gurney set the cup down with deliberate care, his gaze fixed on the papers spread across the desk. “The Landsraad summit is in nine days,” he said, voice roughened by sleep or thought or both.

Paul nodded slowly. “I assumed we’d be expected.”

“Expected?” Gurney gave a short, humorless laugh, though it sounded more like a bark of frustration than amusement. “They’ll be waiting for blood in the water. Feyd’s made sure of that.”

A sheaf of papers slid across the desk toward Paul, stamped with the bold red sigils of CHOAM, a handful of shipping manifests and trade agreements Paul didn’t need to read to recognize. Gurney’s thumb hovered at the edge of the top page, rubbing at an invisible blemish—a nervous habit Paul had come to recognize.

“The Halleck vineyards secured the exclusive wine contract,” Gurney said, his voice dropping a register, low and flat. “Two hundred barrels of the ’47 vintage, to be served at the summit’s opening banquet.”

Paul arched his brow. “And?”

Gurney’s mouth twisted. “Nearly lost the shipment this week. The barrels were delayed at the inspection point outside the planetary hub.”

“Delayed?” Paul straightened, the word sharp against the quiet. “Why?”

Gurney’s jaw worked. “A bureaucratic freeze. A routine audit on agricultural export permits. They pulled every shipment for ‘random quality checks’—except it wasn’t random. They held our barrels back for forty-eight hours while the rest of the cargo passed through. No explanation. No paperwork. Just…held.”

Paul’s lips tightened. “Someone wanted them delayed. Sabotage?”

“Not sabotage,” Gurney said slowly, the bitterness threading his words. “Not the barrels themselves. Just the shipment. The vintages arrived intact, but only just in time to catch the last freighter before the summit. If they’d missed it—if we’d failed to deliver on time—CHOAM would’ve rescinded the contract.”

Paul exhaled sharply, the pieces clicking into place. “Someone’s pushing back.”

“Aye,” Gurney said, voice quiet but grim. “Competitors. Rivals. Merchants with enough clout to pull strings and make it look like routine bureaucracy. They’re making it clear that I’m climbing too high, too fast. And now, with you by my side, they’ll paint me as reckless. Ambitious. Vulnerable.”

Paul leaned his palms against the desk, the wood cool beneath his hands. “So the wine’s not just wine. It’s leverage.”

Gurney nodded once, the tension coiled tight across his shoulders. “This contract secures my CHOAM directorship. A seat at the table. It’s not just wealth—it’s armor. Against Feyd. Against whatever’s coming.”

The real reason went unnamed between them: this wasn’t about vintage or vineyard pride. This was sheer survival against the political currents closing in.

Paul’s gaze swept over Gurney, noting the set of his jaw, the creases at the corners of his mouth. He was a man carrying too much, alone, balancing precariously between brute force and quiet, relentless endurance. A man who, for all his scars, still hadn’t stopped fighting.

“This is our first public appearance as…” Gurney’s voice trailed off, his thumb pressing hard enough to dent the page.

Paul wanted to ask: As what? Spouses? Strategic allies? Pieces on someone else’s board? But the words tangled bitterly in his mouth, refusing to be voiced.

Outside, the rising sun spilled gold across the vineyards, painting the study in streaks of light and shadow. Paul’s eyes caught on the rim of Gurney’s coffee cup, the glint of light on porcelain, the silver threading his hair. He should have felt satisfaction at Gurney’s discomfort, the subtle shift of unease in his guarded stance. Instead, the sting of an unexpected emotion took root—something perilously close to responsibility.

“We’ll make them believe in us,” Paul said quietly, the words slipping free before he could weigh them. 

Gurney went very still, his breath caught at the edge of a response. For a heartbeat, Paul thought he’d miscalculated, thought he’d pushed too far, spoken too soon.

Then—just a flicker—the faintest softening around Gurney’s eyes, another crack in the granite mask. “Aye,” he murmured, his voice almost too low to hear. “We will.”

The moment stretched, fragile as spun glass, holding the weight of everything neither of them dared name. Paul found himself staring at the loose fall of Gurney’s shirt, at the roughness of a beard along his jaw. A flush crept up his neck, his skin prickling as if brushed by static. The silence stretched too tight, alive with the weight of things unspoken. Every inch between them hummed—not with strategy or duty, but with the raw, reckless urge to close the distance. To touch. To ruin. To finally—

The sudden rasp of Gurney clearing his throat startled him, though Gurney didn’t seem to notice, reaching for a ledger with deliberate precision. “We’ll need to review the guest list,” he said, his voice all business again, though his death-grip on the paper told another story. “The—”

“I’ll take the south terrace after breakfast,” Paul interrupted, his voice lower but calm, steady. “Study the protocols.”

Gurney’s eyes met his, surprised, then slowly, almost reluctantly, he nodded. “All right,” he said softly. 

The days before the summit blurred into a rhythm of preparation and silent observation, a quiet cadence that wrapped itself around Paul like a shroud. He spent hours locked away in the estate’s archives, poring over the tangled web of CHOAM trade agreements, memorizing the faces and shifting alliances of the Great Houses, letting the flickering light of data slates etch patterns of cold numbers into his mind until they blurred behind his eyes. He practiced the formal bows of Chusuk nobility until his shoulders ached, drilled the ceremonial greetings until the words turned to ash on his tongue, empty of meaning.

And always, there was Gurney.

Watching him—from a distance, from doorways and shadowed corners of the manor, always with that same tightness in his jaw, that unreadable flicker behind his eyes. But now, there were small allowances: a data slate left conspicuously on Paul’s desk with updated shipping routes annotated in Gurney’s clipped handwriting; a servant dispatched with a quiet nod to summon Paul to the tailors for final fittings, though no one spoke of who had ordered it. 

Once, Paul had walked into Gurney’s chambers unannounced and caught him adjusting the suspenders underneath his formal jacket before the mirror. Paul hovered in the doorway, neither leaving nor speaking, his gaze fixed on his husband. The small flicker of vulnerability in Gurney’s reflection, the way his fingers hesitating, lingering over the worn black leather, how concentration drew his brows together and thinned his mouth.

Gurney had seen him in the glass, their eyes meeting not in space but in reflection, and he had said nothing.He only lowered his hands, the jacket still hanging open, suspenders loose at his sides.

Paul stepped inside. The door clicked softly shut behind him, the sound barely more than breath. Gurney didn’t turn.

Paul wasn’t sure what moved him then. Maybe the silence between them had grown too heavy to ignore. Maybe it was the echo of that terrible night still thudding in his ribs. Maybe it was that Gurney, for all his strength, looked so utterly alone in that moment — and Paul, too, knew that loneliness like a second skin.

He crossed the room slowly, his footsteps quiet on the stone floor. Gurney’s shoulders shifted, but he didn’t speak. 

When Paul reached him, he raised a hand — slowly, deliberately — and brushed his fingers against the curve of Gurney’s back. Just where the suspenders crossed the fabric of his undershirt. The leather was warm, stretched and worn, and beneath it he could feel the hardness of muscle, the ridges of old wounds.

“Let me help,” Paul said, his voice soft, barely more than a murmur between them.

No reply came. But no resistance either.

So Paul reached for the nearest strap, and with care slid the leather up over Gurney’s shoulder. His fingers lingered, brushing skin at the edge of the collar, the worn heat of it startling against his own cool hands. He smoothed it flat with the edge of his palm.

Then the second strap. This time, Gurney’s head bowed slightly, his breath exhaled in a slow, controlled stream—not in surrender, but in something close. Tension, maybe. Or permission.

Paul fastened the first clip at the back, the buckle stiff from age. Then the next, tugging gently to adjust the fit. His knuckles grazed Gurney’s ribs. Not by accident.

Their reflections locked together in the glass, eyes meeting with a silent weight that made the quiet between them almost electric. Gurney’s mask of calm stayed perfect—no flicker of doubt, no stray glance—but the sharpness of his stillness gave him away. This wasn’t avoidance; it was a different kind of caution—like a hunter frozen at the edge of a clearing, or prey who’d chosen not to flee. Either way, he kept watching. Waiting. As if the next move had to come from Paul.

“There,” Paul said quietly. His hands fell back to his sides. “It’s done.”

Gurney turned at last — not sharply, but with a careful gravity. His jacket hung open still, the suspenders neat beneath it, Paul’s touch still warm on the leather. Their eyes held, and in that suspended moment nothing else mattered—just the unrefused touch, the silence swelling between them like a held breath. Neither spoke of it then, nor later, yet the tension humming between them no longer carried just fear or shame, but memory... and the dangerous weight of possibility.

Council briefings bled into security drills, which dissolved into endless protocol reviews, and the days and hours slipped away like sand through clenched fingers. The relentless pace of summit preparations left almost no room for private words between them. Not until the artificial night cycle found Paul pacing the narrow observation corridor of their orbiting vessel, watching Kaitain's jeweled atmosphere swirl below through reinforced plexisteel. The planet taunted them, visible yet untouchable while Imperial docking authorities subjected them to yet another bureaucratic freeze. 

This limbo between journeys had become their only chance to breathe, though neither dared speak what weighed heaviest between them.The cosmic chill seeped through Paul's boots as he walked along the corridor. Soon they would descend into the viper's nest of Landsraad politics, but for these stolen moments, they simply existed in the quiet before the storm.

He found Gurney there, pacing—a slow, restless circuit that bore none of the measured precision of a soldier in control, but instead the taut, uneven steps of a man counting down to an inevitable explosion, each stride a silent strike against the metal floor.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the deck,” Paul murmured as he caught up, his voice pitched low, threaded with a warmth that wasn’t quite teasing. He fell into step beside him, his own strides looser, almost easy by comparison, though the weight Gurney carried—shoulders tight, jaw clenched—felt like a yoke dragging him down.

Gurney didn’t slow. “Shouldn’t you be reviewing protocols?” he asked, the words clipped, sharp-edged, as though flung at Paul to keep him at arm’s length.

“I’ve reviewed them six times already,” Paul said with an exasperated sigh. “And now I want to look at the stars for a change. Come on.”

His hand closed lightly around Gurney’s elbow, fingers brushing over fabric and warm skin beneath, the contact firm but not forceful. The touch lingered longer than it needed to—as though Paul were testing the limits of what Gurney would allow, as though trying to remind them both that he had a right to this closeness now, no matter how new or fragile it might feel. For a heartbeat, he felt the tension in Gurney’s body, the faint, almost imperceptible catch of breath, as if expecting to be shaken off or rejected.

But Gurney didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull away. He let himself be steered toward the observation deck with a quiet, reluctant acquiescence that felt heavier than words.

The viewport spread wide before them, revealing Kaitain turning slowly beneath—a world wrapped in bands of cloud and shimmering oceans, glowing softly beneath the distant, cold gaze of stars. Gurney’s reflection flickered in the glass, the harsh lines of his face drawn tight, the silver threading his beard and hair catching the light.

Paul leaned casually against the viewport, arms crossed loosely, his voice quieter now, almost careful. “You’ve been here before,” he said, not quite a question.

“Aye,” Gurney replied, the syllable clipped and low, his gaze locked on the turning planet as though it might offer some answer he couldn’t find in the space around them.

“After my father rescued you from the Harkonnens?” Paul pressed, the question light but edged with intent.

Gurney’s jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath the rough stubble, his breath pulled thin. “Me and hundreds of others,” he said at last, his voice flat as though the words were dragged from his throat against his will.

The stars painted sharp, cold lines across his profile, tracing the shadows under his eyes, the hollow at his temple, the tension of his mouth. The next question hovered on Paul’s lips, trembling there, before he let it slip free. “What was it like?” he asked softly, steady despite the quiet urgency in his voice. “The Harkonnen prison.”

For a long moment, silence thickened between them, vast and echoing, deeper than the space outside. Gurney’s body stilled completely, as though the memory itself had slammed into him like a blow.

“That’s not a conversation for now,” he said at last, his voice quiet but final, the words falling like a door shutting with the weight of a thousand unspoken stories.

Paul’s gaze dropped, his hand tightening slightly on the railing. He noticed how Gurney’s hands flexed and loosened, like he was gripping the air, bracing against something unseen. The stars stretched around them, cold and indifferent.

“I’d like to know,” Paul said, his voice dropping lower. “Because this is the debt you’re paying him now.”

Gurney’s gaze snapped to him, a sharp glance that made the mask slip—just for a breath. But when he spoke, his voice was rough, though not unkind, its edges worn by something closer to exhaustion than rejection. “I’ve paid all my debts,” he murmured, the faintest trace of a wry smile curving his mouth. “You should focus on the summit, Paul. That’s battle enough for today.”

He turned then, the scrape of his boots against the deck, a low steady rhythm as he walked away, each step deliberate, echoing into the quiet corridor.

Paul stayed where he was, his hand still resting lightly on the viewport railing, his gaze locked on Kaitain turning beneath them, perfect in its cold beauty. The sadness that settled in his chest was light but insistent, like a weight just beginning to press against him—but beneath the ache of unspoken things, there was something hotter stirring. A need to understand. To unravel the man who carried these unspoken wounds, to peel back the careful layers of silence Gurney had wrapped around himself like armor.

***

The inspection hall stretched before them like a giant cage, its vaulted ceilings amplifying every sound—the clink of glass, the shuffle of boots, the nervous clearing of throats. Paul followed half a step behind Gurney as they moved between the rows of shipping containers,  gleaming under the too-bright glowglobes like polished relics.

Kaitain customs officials in their yellow robes moved without ceremonial precision—quick, efficient, but with a tension in their shoulders that set Paul's teeth on edge. He cataloged each detail: the way one man's fingers twitched near his belt knife, how another kept glancing toward the exits.

Gurney's posture remained impeccable, the cut of his formal jacket emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders, but Paul had spent weeks learning to read the subtle language of that body. The stiffness in his left side where old scars pulled tight. The way his right thumb rubbed against his index finger when assessing risk.

"You didn't have to come," Gurney murmured, barely moving his lips.

Paul kept his eyes forward, at the customs officers walking before them. "Wine empires aren’t won in ledgers. I want to see how it’s done."

A muscle jumped in Gurney's jaw. He didn't reply, but his pace slowed just enough for Paul to draw even with him as they approached the final row—not containers, but barrels, where the wine was kept separate from the rest of the goods. The air here smelled different, richer, the old oak of mingling with the faintest hint of spice from the aging wine.

Gurney stopped before the largest cask, his hand hovering over the House Halleck insignia burned into the wood. "This one," he said, voice pitched for the officials trailing them, "was sealed on Chusuk in my presence."

Paul watched Gurney's fingers trace the grain of the wood, the touch lingering too long to be merely ceremonial. This cask wasn't just wine—it was years of careful cultivation, of political maneuvering, of surviving Harkonnen torment only to rebuild from nothing.

The custom officer stepped forward with his poison snooper. Gurney recited the authorization codes flawlessly, but Paul saw the way his shoulders tensed when the silver tube pierced the cask's seal.

When the crystal sample cup was filled, Gurney accepted it with steady hands—outwardly. Paul, standing close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body, caught the minute tremor in his wrist, the slight hitch in his breathing.

Gurney raised the cup, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the bouquet—then froze. Every line of his body went taut.

"The barrel isn't right."

The officer blinked, confused, but Paul was already moving, his fingers brushing Gurney's wrist. "Let me."

Their eyes met—Gurney's dark with dawning fury, Paul's steady with Bene Gesserit calm. After a weighted moment, Gurney relinquished the cup.

Paul lifted it to his lips, inhaling deeply. Beneath the expected notes of black cherry and aged oak slithered something acrid, almost medicinal. Not the traditional kind of chaumurky, but something vicious, something new, undetectable by usual means. He dipped his finger into the liquid, letting a single drop coat his tongue.

The poison announced itself instantly—a metallic bite at the back of his throat, subtle enough to escape casual detection but unmistakable to his trained senses. Not enough to kill, but certainly enough to sicken. To humiliate.

He didn't need to speak. The hardening of Gurney's expression showed he understood.

"Seal the hall," Gurney commanded, his voice low but carrying like a whipcrack. "No one enters or leaves until I determine the extent of this contamination."

The customs officials protested, but Gurney cut through their objections with glacial precision. "You will recall that House Halleck's contract guarantees final quality approval rests with me. Unless you wish to explain why a tainted wine was served at the Landsraad summit?"

The threat hung in the air. The officials paled and stepped back.

As workers scrambled to secure the area, Paul watched Gurney. Really watched him. The way his breathing remained controlled but too even, the whitening of his knuckles where they gripped his belt, the minute tremors running through him that only someone standing this close could detect. This wasn't just business. This was Rabban's inkvine whip across his face. This was the Harkonnen slave pits. This was every indignity Gurney had endured and overcome, only to have the universe laugh in his face once more.

Paul felt something hot and dangerous uncoil in his chest.

The worker’s voice trembled as he stepped forward, his hands clenched at his sides. "Sir, we’ve checked the logs. The barrels were under constant guard from the moment they left Chusuk. Your personal seal was still intact when they arrived."

Gurney went utterly still. That meant only one thing—the wine had been poisoned before it ever reached Kaitain. Before it had even left their home.

Paul watched as the truth settled over Gurney like a slow, suffocating weight. His expression didn’t change—no snarl of rage, no flicker of despair—but his body locked into place, every muscle rigid, as if he were bracing against a blow that had already landed. His hands, usually so sure, hung motionless at his sides, fingers curling slightly, as though grasping for a weapon that wasn’t there.

Paul stepped closer, close enough that his sleeve brushed Gurney’s arm. "We can still salvage this."

Gurney’s laugh was a sound scraped raw. "With what?" His voice was low, stripped of its usual command. "There’s no time to replace it. No backup vintage. This was our last play."

"We don’t need to replace it," Paul said.

Gurney turned then, his gaze sharpening, searching Paul’s face as if he might find answers written there. Paul held his stare, letting Gurney see the certainty in his eyes—even if, beneath it, his own doubts churned. The plan forming in his mind was reckless—barely more than a gamble, but it was all they had.

For a long moment, the chaos of the hall faded—the murmurs of the customs officials, the shuffle of panicked workers, the heavy weight of failure pressing in on them. There was only this: the space between their bodies, the shared breath, the unspoken understanding that if they faltered now, everything would crumble.

Gurney exhaled, slow and controlled. "You have a plan."

Not a question. A statement. A surrender to possibility.

Paul’s lips curved into a sharp smile. "The beginnings of one."

Something flickered in Gurney’s eyes then—not yet hope, but something close. He straightened, the burden on his shoulders transforming from crushing despair to burning resolve. When he turned to the waiting officials, his voice rang out, clear and commanding.

"Clear the hall. My husband and I will inspect the remaining barrels personally."

Chapter Text

They cleared the hall. Quickly, quietly. No panic. Gurney’s voice had that edge again — the old commander's bark, cold and absolute.

And Paul stood, very still, feeling his senses tingled, but not from the poison. From the realization that he was the only one who could see it for what it was.

Tleilaxu poisons were made to hide. They were meant to pass through Guild security and Bene Gesserit tests alike — slipping between neural thresholds, altering thought before it altered breath.

But Paul had tasted the silence behind the science.

He remembered Jessica’s voice in the echo of memory: “Transformation begins in the mouth. If you can name it, you can shape it.”

He couldn’t name it, not fully. He wasn’t a Reverend Mother. He hadn’t walked the agony. But something in his blood — that blood born of the Sisterhood’s breeding plan — knew.

"Tleilaxu."

The word to Paul's tongue, the aftertaste of betrayal: the wine's false sweetness giving way to something colder, sharper, a coiled serpent of poison waiting to unspool its venom through the veins. "A behavioral modifier. Slow-acting. Meant to rewrite a man's loyalties before he even notices the knife in his back."

Gurney didn't respond. The silence between them was the charged quiet of a bowstring drawn to breaking. Paul could hear the deliberate control in Gurney's breathing, each measured inhale a soldier's last bastion against fury. When he finally spoke, his voice was ground down to gravel by some emotion too dangerous to name.

"How in the nine hells can you be certain?"

Paul's fingers tightened into a fist. The memory of his mother's hands guiding his own as she taught him this lethal art. "I smelled it," he said, and the lie tasted bland compared to the truth humming in his blood. The Bene Gesserit training had awoken like a second heartbeat, whispering of alkaloids and neurotoxins in a language older than the Imperium. "We're taught to know poison before it knows us. To taste betrayal in the cup before it touches our lips."

Gurney moved like a storm front, his boots striking the stone floor with the finality of a headsman's axe. His hand shot out—not for the cup, his calloused fingers closing around Paul's wrist with the desperate strength. "Then dump it over." The order left no room for debate. "Now."

"No." Paul's refusal was softer than Gurney's grip, but just as unyielding. "I'll transmute it."

Gurney went statue-still. Even his breath seemed to stop. " Transmute." The word wasn't a question. It was an indictment. "You're talking about turning your body into a damn alchemy lab. That's not a solution—that's a death wish."

Paul lifted his gaze. Let Gurney see the truth in his eyes—the vulnerable resolve of a man choosing his own damnation. "Our bodies can remake poisons," he said, and the words carried the weight of centuries. "Turn venom into water. Toxin into air. It's what the Sisterhood does—what I was born to do."

"Have you done this before?" Gurney's voice cracked on the last word, the anger bleeding into something far more dangerous.

A heartbeat. Two. Paul didn't blink. "No."

The air left Gurney's lungs in a rush, as if he'd taken a blow to the gut. "Then you don't know what it'll do to you." His thumb pressed against the frantic pulse in Paul's wrist, measuring the lie of his calm. "Whether you'll even survive it."

Paul tilted his head—just so—letting the artificial glow slide over the damp column of his throat, the faint tremor there belying the steel in his voice. A calculated provocation. A challenge.

"I know the weight of this poison. This isn’t your burden to carry, Gurney. It’s mine. My body." A pause, sharp as a blade’s edge. "My choice."

Gurney recoiled as if struck. "This isn't about choice, you damned fool—it's about throwing yourself on a pyre to prove you can burn!" He dragged a hand through his hair, the gesture violently unsteady. "What could possibly be worth this risk?"

Paul stepped into the space between them. 

"This marriage."

The confession hung between them, fragile as a soap bubble. Paul could see the war in Gurney's eyes—the instinct to grab and shake warring with the terrible need to pull him close. To protect. To possess.

When Gurney spoke again, his voice was scraped raw. "And if it hurts?"

Paul didn't hesitate. "Then it hurts." He leaned in, close enough to share breath, to let Gurney taste the wine still clinging to his lips. "But I want it to be you who watches me take the pain. You who sees me survive it."

The silence that followed was full of ghostly, unspoken words. It pulsed between them, thick with the scent of ozone and sweat and something hotter, darker.

"Then show me," Gurney whispered, and it wasn't surrender—it was a challenge. "But no lies, Paul. Not about this. Not with me."

Paul turned his palm up, lacing their fingers together in the old Atreides oath—warrior  to warrior, equals in the fight. "Never."

The silence followed Paul like a robe as he walked to the barrels, half of them already opened. He could smell it now. And when the scent hit the back of his throat, every nerve ending in his body bloomed with cold, alert stillness.

Tleilaxu.

Unlike the crude weapons favored by amateur assassins, this was a creation of patient, deliberate craft—its malice folded into itself like a perfumed letter steeped in poison. The first taste was almost delicate, a vanishing sweetness, but beneath it lurked something older—a hollowness that spread like ink in water, corrupting the vessel from within. It reached the pulsing heart of things with slow, practiced grace… and then, it began to erase.

The altered barrels were indistinguishable to the eye, but the pattern in the air had changed — sweetness curled too tightly, something behind it dead and moving. This was no simple venom. This was programming. A kill-switch designed to hide itself inside the sensory pleasure of the wine. To trigger not pain, but obedience. Or death.

He ran a fingertip along the edge of the cask, then pressed it to his lips. His tongue recognized the bitterness, but his nerves tasted something else: a shape beneath the poison, a signal that made him gagged — but only slightly.

Then he focused.

The Bene Gesserit poison transmutation required total discipline — not just of the body, but of memory. Of pain. Paul had not been trained for this.

But he remembered watching Jessica once, when he was young, drawing a venom from a knife wound with her breath alone. She had spat it into the fire, and it had burned green.

“You must make the body a crucible,” she had said. “The poison must pass through you, not into you.”

Now he would do the same. Not perfectly. Not as a Sister, but as a Son.

He took the cup, dipped it into the open cask, drew a mouthful of the wine, and held it on his tongue. 

Heat surged through his blood—less a physical burn than an instinctive warning. The Voice inside him stirred, ready to separate. Memory layered over memory: each taste a code, each breath a question.

And slowly, Paul understood. The toxin was not intended to kill instantly. It was a conditioning agent, planted to weaken volition, to fog memory, to quiet dissent.

He spat the wine into the barrel. He didn’t swallow. He spat into the poisoned wine the way he’d spat into the fire. Again. Then again.

He did this for every contaminated cask. His spit was the antidote.

Not chemically. Not literally. But by naming the poison in his mind, by refusing its entry, by giving it shape and denial, he made it visible — traceable. And each time he spit, the air shifted. The wine responded.

The transformation wasn’t perfect. But it was enough to neutralize.

By the sixth barrel, Paul's hands had started to shake.

He didn’t show it — not outwardly. His posture remained upright, his movements precise. But inside, something was shifting: a tremor in his gut, a pressure behind his eyes. The world was getting quieter around the edges, as though the sound were being pulled inward — into his bones.

His mouth burned. The taste of the poison wasn’t just in his tongue anymore — it was under it, around it, within him. A sharp metallic whisper curled in his throat, trailing down the back of his neck and into his spine. He could feel his pulse beating in strange places — in his fingertips, in the hollow of his throat, behind his eyes.

He dipped the cup into the dark liquid once more, his hand trembling slightly as he raised it to his lips. He took a slow, deliberate sip, allowing the bitter taste to coat his tongue before he leaned over and spat.

And then, without warning, the world around him seemed to lurch violently, the ground shifting beneath his feet as if the very earth had come alive. His vision blurred, and he instinctively reached out, his fingers digging into the rough wood of the barrel for support. His knees locked, muscles tensing in a desperate attempt to steady himself against the sudden, overwhelming dizziness.

The hall was spinning — no, pulsing, like breath held too long. His legs went soft beneath him and he stumbled sideways, slamming into the stone column with a dull crack. A low, animal sound escaped his throat — not a cry, not a word.

Just pain.

“Paul.”

Gurney’s voice. Close now. Closer than before.

Paul tried to answer, but his jaw seized. His back arched and the air scraped in and out of his lungs in short, brutal gasps. His limbs trembled violently, and then one arm jerked back uncontrollably — a spasm, hard and sharp.

“Paul—”

Hands caught him before he hit the floor.

Gurney knelt with him, one arm around his chest, the other at his forehead. His voice was low, steady — but Paul could hear the panic thrumming beneath it.

“Breathe. Just breathe. Come on, lad, come back now. Focus on my voice. Focus.”

Paul's vision wavered. The edges had gone dark. His stomach twisted once, violently, and bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it down with effort. His heart was pounding far too fast, the rhythm stuttering.

He was going to die.

The thought came with clarity, cold and sharp.

You’ve failed. You touched something you didn’t understand and it’s breaking you.

“I—” he gasped. “Can’t—”

“You can,” Gurney growled, rough and fierce. His hand slid up to cradle the back of Paul’s head, steadying him. “You bloody well can, Paul. Just hold on.”

Paul convulsed again, his entire body seizing for a moment — then falling limp, breath escaping in a hiss. Gurney held him tighter, lowering him to the floor with slow care. His body felt like fire and ice — too hot in his core, too cold at the edges.

“Poison’s moving,” Paul choked. “It’s… inside… I can’t... hold it…”

“You’ve done enough. You’ve done more than enough,” Gurney said. His voice was shaking now, though he tried to hide it. “Let it pass. Let it break. I’ve got you.”

Paul nuzzled into the warm hollow of Gurney’s throat, where his collar lay open, breathing in the musky scent of salt and warmed skin. The coarse hairs of Gurney’s chest brushed against his cheek, sending a shiver through him—each faint touch like the whisper of a grass blade against bare flesh. He lingered there, lips nearly grazing the skin, savoring the heat rising from Gurney’s body, the way his breath hitched just slightly at the contact. It was intoxicating, this stolen moment where the world narrowed to nothing but skin and breath and the promise of something more. He could feel the beat of the older man’s heart — steady, solid — like the sound of drums through stone. A counter-rhythm. A tether.

“I thought I could… I thought—”

“I know.”

Silence.

Paul's breathing began to slow, each one ragged but deeper. The spasms eased. The pulse at his throat softened.

Maybe, he thought, this is how I'm going to die. In the hands of another man, but alone.

***

Minutes passed.

Gurney didn’t move.

He sat there on the stone floor of the hall, holding Paul like he was something fragile and burning at once — one hand cradling the back of his neck, the other braced around his ribs to keep his body from curling in on itself.

Gurney held him as if trying to keep time itself from slipping away.

Paul was limp at first—then arched suddenly, convulsing in his arms. The spasms rippled through him in slow, sinuous waves, and for a breathless second, Gurney could not tell whether it’s agony or ecstasy etched across the sharp lines of his face. His lips parted around a voiceless cry, lashes fluttering against sweat-damp cheeks, and his fingers curled into the front of Gurney’s shirt with desperate strength.

Gurney pressed his palm to Paul’s chest, feeling the erratic thunder of his heart beneath fevered skin. His other hand cradled the back of Paul’s head, guiding it gently against his shoulder, shielding his face from the light.

“It’s the toxin,” he whispered to no one, to the silence, to the merciless sky above. “It’s the poison.”

But Paul didn’t hear. His body bucked again—shuddered—and then went still, trembling, breath catching in short, shallow bursts. A soft sound escaped him, raw and half-formed, somewhere between a moan and a sob. His mouth tried to form words, but they fell apart before they reached sound. Gurney kissed his temple—not in longing or lust, but as one might press lips to a relic.

The moment stretched—wretched, fragile, unbearably close. And still, somewhere beneath the convulsions, there was beauty. The beauty of resistance. Of a body trying to live.

When at last Paul stirred, lifting his head slightly, he was pale — soaked in sweat, lips cracked, eyes rimmed with red. He blinked at Gurney through the blur. His voice was a whisper.

“This isn't over yet.”

Gurney held him close, arms locked around Paul’s trembling body with the kind of desperate strength he might use to brace himself against a desert storm. His own body was shaking, though he’d sooner bite through his tongue than admit to it. When he finally exhaled, it was with the shuddering relief of a drowning man breaking the surface after too long underwater.

Paul leaned into him, moving with the painful slowness of someone testing every muscle after being crushed by an invisible weight. He felt heavy in Gurney’s arms—until, with a sharp breath that was more grunt than voice, he forced himself upright by sheer will.

Gurney rose with him at once, his hand staying under Paul’s elbow like a steadying anchor, firm and ready to tighten at the first hint of collapse. But Paul—pale as salt and just as brittle—didn’t falter. He didn’t even sway. Instead, he turned with terrifying focus toward the cup, his fingers already reaching for it with the grim certainty of a planet pulled toward its sun.

“Lad…” Gurney began, the word barely formed.

Paul didn’t look at him. His hand trembled, but his grip held. “There are barrels left,” he said hoarsely. “Not all of them were opened.”

“You’ve done enough.”

Paul finally turned. His eyes were glassy, fever-bright — but focused. “You’re doing your work. I’ve got mine. That means we’re not done here. Not until I say we are.”

Gurney stared at him. Then, slowly, reverently, let his hand fall away.

He followed Paul without another word.

Just kept a half-step behind him, boots crunching on damp stone, the glowglobes casting long shadows ahead of them. He’d watched as Paul moved from barrel to barrel with terrifying calm, light flickering across his sharp, pale features. Watched as Paul dipped the cup, sipped, held the poison in his mouth like a secret — then spat into the wine with quiet, deliberate force.

Gurney never asked what he was doing—not because he understood the mechanics or the chemical layers, but because he recognized the weight of it, the madness, the sheer terrifying genius.

Paul’s breathing grew ragged by the third cask. His lips had gone violet. The faint line of blood along the bottom lip made Gurney’s chest tighten, but he still said nothing — just stood in the shadows, afraid that if he moved, the spell would break.

He hadn’t known the boy was capable of this. He had known potential, yes — brilliance, prophecy, fire — but not this kind of control. Not this kind of defiance that lived in the body itself.

Paul was trembling by the last barrel.

Gurney watched him lift the cup one final time, shoulders squared, jaw clenched against the pain, and taste. Paul spat. Marked the cask. Only then did he sag back against the stone column, his chest heaving and his eyes fluttering shut for a breath.

And then slowly, he turned his head, meeting Gurney’s eyes.

The air around them had grown quiet, the kind of silence that felt not empty but watched, the kind that pressed against the skin rather than soothed it. The barrels stood in their places like quiet witnesses, marked by Paul's trembling hands. The suspensor lamp hovered low, almost touching their heads, its flicker catching on the sweat clinging to Paul’s brow, on the faint stain of wine at the corners of his mouth, on the shadow pooling beneath his collarbone where the convulsions had left bruises on his flesh.

Paul sat with his back against the wall, his legs drawn halfway up to his chest, one arm draped lazily across his knee in a posture that might have read as relaxed if not for the fine tremor still running down his fingers — a tremor he no longer tried to hide. The fire in his body had mostly passed, but its echo still smoldered deep in the channels of his nerves, and though his breathing had steadied, it came through lips cracked and sore and bitten raw from enduring.

Gurney walked toward the open barrel, reaching for a half-filled cup. His fingers curled in the air just shy of contact, but his eyes stayed fixed on the dark liquid inside the cup, as if he were trying to read some hidden truth in the way it caught the light.

“You shouldn’t,” Paul said, his voice low and cracked, like something peeled from a deeper place.

Gurney didn’t look at him right away. “It’s safe now,” he said after a moment, his voice careful, measured.

“That’s not why,” Paul answered, and the way the words came out — soft, without accusation — made the room feel smaller, heavier, like gravity itself had shifted to the space between them.

Gurney’s hand stilled mid-air, the tension in his shoulders tightening, not with anger but with a kind of quiet reluctance, as if something inside him had been acknowledged against his will.

“I don’t want to see your body seize the way mine did,” Paul added, his head turning slightly toward the man, his eyes half-lidded but lucid.

Another silence passed, not hollow but tense, like a string pulled tight between two points.

“I wasn’t afraid of that,” Gurney said eventually, but the pause before the words gave him away — he was afraid, not of the poison, perhaps, but of what came with it: helplessness, the loss of control, Paul witnessing his agony.

Paul let out a sound that was almost a laugh, though there was no real amusement in it. “Then you’re a fool,” he said, not cruelly, but with a weariness that made the insult feel more like an observation than an attack.

Gurney finally turned, their eyes meeting across the hall, and then Paul reached toward the nearest cup, which sat abandoned beside a smudge of crimson on the stone floor. Without hesitation, he poured from one of the casks he had cleared — clean now, if such a word could be trusted — and the scent rose immediately, warm and heady, earthy and sharp.

Gurney watched him without uttering a word.

Paul lifted the cup to his mouth. For a moment he held it there, the rim resting against his lip as if he were debating whether or not to take another risk. His hand trembled just slightly, a flicker of motion barely visible except to someone who had been watching him too long, too closely.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes — and drank the entire cup.

It struck fast, too fast. He coughed, hard, nearly dropped the cup, then swallowed again — not wine, but air, as if trying to drag something down that didn’t want to stay inside him.

Gurney stepped forward instinctively, reaching — but Paul shook his head, waved him off, stubborn even in this.

“I need to know,” he said, panting between breaths. “I need to feel what’s left.”

And then, as the heat rose into his limbs and his cheeks flushed again — but this time not from poison — Paul let out a slow, strange laugh, soft, confused, like the sound of a boy standing on the edge of something and not knowing if it would carry him or swallow him whole.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been drunk,” he whispered, almost like a confession.

Gurney came closer then, slower this time, and sank down beside him, not quite touching but near enough that Paul could feel his presence.

“How do you feel?” Gurney asked, the question quiet but filled with more meaning than he let show.

Paul turned his head slightly, blinking as if the light had blurred. “Dizzy,” he said, then smiled faintly. “Like my body is trying to remember where it ends.”

Gurney watched him.

And Paul, eyes glassy now, said, “You’re staring.”

Gurney didn’t deny it.

Paul's gaze lingered a little too long. There was something unsteady in the space between them, but it wasn’t dangerous. It was fragile, yes, but warm, and it made Paul’s voice softer when he asked, “Do you still hate me?”

Gurney's jaw flexed once. “I never—”

“I said ugly things,” Paul cut in, his voice swaying with the edge of intoxication. “I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to be cruel. But you…” He didn’t finish. Just shook his head. “You didn’t even touch me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Gurney murmured, though he didn’t sound like he believed it.

“I do,” Paul said, and then leaned, carefully, until his head rested against Gurney’s shoulder. “That’s the worst part.”

Gurney went still.

The weight of Paul, slight and fever-warm against him, was not heavy — but it meant something. Something he didn’t quite have the language to name.

He didn’t move, or shift away, or speak again. He simply let Paul rest, breathing beside him, body relaxed in the way only wine or grief could allow. And in that quiet, lit only by a dim light of a single glowglobe and the scent of wine and old stone, Gurney sat with him.

Not as guard.
Not as husband.
Just as the man who stayed.

The wine had done its work — Gurney could see it in the way Paul's muscles finally uncoiled against him, the slow surrender of tension that no amount of willpower could fake. The boy's head rested heavy on his shoulder now, breath warming the sweat-damp hollow where Gurney's collar gaped open. That measured rhythm against his skin—too even, too controlled—told him Paul was still conscious. 

Gurney didn't move. His calloused hand stayed where it was, splayed across Paul's back, feeling each subtle shift of ribs beneath damp fabric. 

“Gurney,” Paul said softly. The name slurred at the edges, but the voice beneath it was sharp with intent.

Gurney turned slightly, eyes lowering, though he didn’t answer right away. Paul lifted his head and looked at him — directly, eyes glassy and bruised with tiredness, but clear.

“Would you…?” he began, then stopped. Licked his lips. Swallowed. “Would you stay with me? Not just… like this.”

The air went still.
Paul reached up, one hand grazing his shoulder. His touch was clumsy, uncertain, but real—a tentative gesture, not of seduction but of longing, something desperate, nearly broken.

“Please,” Paul whispered. “I don’t want to sleep alone. I don’t want to dream alone, not tonight.”

Gurney swallowed hard.

Paul leaned in, his hand coming to rest against Gurney’s chest—right over his heart. Gurney kept still, his heartbeat calm, too steady, like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will.

“I’d let you,” Paul said, breath hitching. “I’d let you do whatever you want. I wouldn’t stop you. I don’t want to.”

Gurney closed his eyes.

Paul’s fingers slipped against the edge of his jacket, and his voice grew softer, almost ashamed: “I know I said cruel things. That night. I wanted you to hate me. I thought maybe you’d... take me if I gave you a reason.”

He tried to laugh. It cracked before it formed.

“I wanted you to touch me. Even if it hurt. At least then I’d feel like I wasn’t just... forgotten.”

That was what broke Gurney. Not the words, but that voice — that fragile, drunken honesty in a boy who had faced poison and silence and still couldn’t believe anyone might want him without pain.

Slow and careful, Gurney reached up and took Paul’s hand with a kind of reverence that held sorrow beneath it, something so quiet it nearly hurt to feel.

“No,” he said. “Not like this.”

Paul blinked, eyes glistening. “Why?”

“Because you’ve had poison in your blood,” Gurney said, voice low. “Because your mouth still tastes like fire and you’re not asking — you’re pleading. And I won't let that be our beginning.”

Gurney bent toward him again, arms moving with the slow, practiced care of a man about to lift something too delicate for the world’s rough hands. It wasn’t about control—it never had been. He only meant to draw Paul into rest, into silence, into the kind of sleep that might blunt the edge of pain for a while.

But even before he touched him, Gurney could feel it—Paul wasn’t ready to sleep. And he wasn’t willing to be treated like something fragile anymore.

There was something simmering in him—wine, fever, a raw, unspoken ache just beneath the surface—and in that stretched, breathless moment when Gurney reached out again, Paul moved first.

He leaned forward sharply, closing the distance between them with a determination that was almost violent in its urgency, and kissed Gurney— not with finesse or hesitation, but with the kind of stubborn, breathless defiance that demanded to be answered.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t soft. It was hunger and fear and a desperate need to be felt, to be acknowledged.

His lips met Gurney’s with a force that wasn’t about seduction, not truly — it was something messier, rawer, more human, the kind of kiss that comes from too much silence and too much restraint.

Gurney didn’t react at first.

He didn’t kiss him back, nor did he pull away — he just froze, as if the moment had suspended him in place, his hands hovering, his breath caught somewhere between his ribs and his throat.

But Paul wasn’t done.

He shifted against Gurney, movements fluid with wine and heat—loose in a way that was all intention, all surrender. His head tilted with that slow, fevered precision that told Gurney he knew exactly what he was doing. The kiss lingered—not out of practiced skill, but from sheer need, as if Paul couldn’t bear for it to remain something gentle. His tongue brushed along Gurney’s lower lip, asking without words.

But Gurney didn’t move. He kept his mouth still, his hands steady, his breath even—as if none of this touched him. As if he could keep himself separate, untouched, just a little longer.

He felt the change in Paul—the flicker of frustration sharpening into something else. Then Paul’s mouth was lower, dragging down, and Gurney barely had time to brace before teeth grazed his chest. The muscle under his skin twitched—he knew Paul felt it—and then came the bite. Not cruel, not breaking skin, but enough to leave something behind. Something that would stay, something that would bruise, that would ache, that would remind.

Gurney inhaled sharply, a breath dragged through clenched teeth, not in pain exactly, but in something adjacent — shock, maybe, or disbelief — and he pulled back, not far, just enough to end the bite, just enough to see Paul’s face up close: flushed and uneven, lips red and parted, eyes wide and swimming with something stubborn and almost heartbreaking.

Paul was breathing too fast now, the wine rising again in his cheeks, and when he spoke, the words fell from his lips as if they’d been waiting too long inside him.

“If you won’t take me,” he said, voice shaking, hoarse with frustration and fear, “then feel me.”

And Gurney — still caught between the sharp ache of that kiss and the echo of Paul’s teeth on his mouth — couldn’t answer right away.

He wanted to. He wanted to say something that would make it stop hurting, that would pull the shame from Paul’s shoulders without pretending it had never existed, but all he could do was look at him — really look — and then move, slowly, as if afraid that anything faster might shatter what fragile understanding remained between them.

He reached for Paul again, this time not in surrender, but in control — not to return the kiss, not to punish or possess, but to hold him, contain him, fold him against his chest with arms that knew how to break and how not to.

Paul struggled, once — a brief resistance, more instinct than thought — but then sagged in Gurney’s hold, all the tension running out of him like breath.

His forehead came to rest near Gurney’s collarbone, lips brushing skin just below the place he had bitten, and for one lingering second, they stayed that way, bodies close but separated by everything they couldn’t say.

Gurney leaned down, close enough to feel Paul’s breath against his cheek, and whispered, voice low and ragged:

“Enough.”

Not a command or a judgment. A boundary. A mercy.

And Paul didn’t fight it.

Paul let himself be lifted—again—into Gurney’s arms, his body slack, his head lolling against the older man’s shoulder. Gurney’s muscles trembled now, not just from exhaustion, but from the effort of restraint, of holding back the fury and fear that threatened to crack through. He carried Paul up the stairs like a man bearing a shattered icon—something that had once been holy, something that might be again, if only he could lay it down gently enough to keep it from breaking further.

Outside, the customs workers hovered, their pallid faces caught between fear and confusion. They stared at the pair as if they were witnessing something forbidden.

“Get me a ground car to the hotel—now!” Gurney’s voice was a whip-crack in the air, and the workers scattered like dust before the wind.

The Kaitain suite dripped with imperial excess—gleaming chandelier-jewels refracting light across gold-threaded drapery, the bed a plush island of iridescent moon-silk sheets. Gurney's boots sank into the pearl-white whale fur as he carried Paul to the absurdly oversized mattress, its surface cold despite the planet's eternal spring. The air smelled of distilled jasmine and obscene wealth.

He laid Paul down like a broken treasure, brushing a curl of damp hair from his temple; the boy's sweat-damp shirt staining fabric worth a water-farmer's yearly quota. Outside, the muffled chime of pleasure-gongs underscored the room's hollow grandeur. Nothing here was meant to bear the weight of real suffering.

It was too quiet here. No hum of machinery, no distant murmur of voices—just the shallow rasp of Paul’s breathing and the low, constant groan of the wind against the window.

Gurney stood over him, hands clenched. The boy looked fragile against the silk sheets—too pale, too still. Like a figure carved from salt, already beginning to erode.

Paul stirred once, his fingers brushing Gurney’s wrist as if trying, even now, to keep hold of something he knew he would lose again by morning.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he whispered, soft and already half-asleep, lips barely moving.

Gurney stood still, the weight of him aching under the skin.

“But you’re afraid of being alone,” he answered.

Paul’s eyes fluttered shut. He didn’t answer.

So Gurney sat - rigid in the hard-backed chair beside the bed, his muscles locked like a man awaiting execution - and kept his vigil through the long hours of the night. Not a touch. Not a word. Just his eyes tracking the slow rise and fall of Paul's chest, the rhythm of survival, while the memory of that kiss burned against his lips like a brand.

The bite mark still throbbed on his skin - a sharp, sweet pain right above his left nipple where the boy had sunk his teeth in, where Gurney had gripped his hips and held on instead of pushing him away.

And God help him, it was all still there, festering in his chest like an infected wound — those ragged words hanging between them in the dark:

"I wanted you to touch me. Even if it hurt."

Chapter Text

Paul woke to a room he didn’t recognize.

The ceiling above him was a muted ivory, veined with decorative filigree that shimmered faintly in the artificial light, too ornate to be Chusuk, too cold to be Caladan. A ceiling made to impress, not comfort. His body lay half-draped across silk sheets that rustled when he shifted, the sound almost offensively crisp to his ears. His mouth tasted like iron and wine, his temples throbbed as if his skull had been hammered from within, and his breath caught on some old, dried thing in his throat—words left unspoken or screams never loosed.

He lay still for a long time, letting his gaze travel across the ceiling’s endless ornamental patterns as though following them might anchor him to reality. The air smelled faintly of amber resin and jasmine, with an undercurrent of something antiseptic. Somewhere nearby, a machine hummed in a polished register, something invisible but designed to maintain a perfect, sterile equilibrium.

A hotel room. Kaitain. The Imperial District. It came to him slowly, reluctantly, the details slotting into place with uneasy stiffness.

He shifted, and every joint in his body sent up a soft protest. His skin felt tender in places he couldn’t name. Something had wrung him out, emptied him, and poured something new back in before the shape of him had fully hardened again. He blinked slowly, the light from the glow globes too white, too clean, and let his head fall sideways against the pillows.

The room was vast, pristine, painfully elegant in a way that declared its expense without warmth. Pale marble floors gleamed beneath whale fur carpets and minimalist furnishings: a long, low table of smoked glass, two hovering chairs too smooth to be sat in comfortably, a carved stone drinking basin that looked more sculptural than functional.

And there, by the far wall, a chair had been pulled slightly askew.

His breath hitched.

It wasn’t the chair itself, though the faint indent in the seat cushion told him someone had sat there for a long time. It was the image that surged up with the sight of it—the flash of a shadowed figure bent over him, the grip of strong hands around his shoulders, the dull ache of his own body trembling beneath unfamiliar weight. His throat tightened as memory crawled back through the fog.

They had been checking the wine barrels, hadn’t they? The wine—he remembered that clearly now—the weight of the glass in his hand, the taste of rot and heat that shouldn’t have been there. The jolt through his blood, the sharp wrongness like a scream blooming behind his eyes.

And then—chaos, or near to it. His body rebelling, his mind reaching deep for something that wasn’t science but instinct. Transmutation. The ancient Bene Gesserit tenet unspooling inside him, not taught but inherited.

He had stood his ground. Had he?

He remembered rushing in his ears and heat in his chest, his vision sharpening around the edges while his limbs went cold. And then—Gurney.

The memory hit harder than the others. Gurney had been there. Holding him.

Paul turned his head to the other side of the bed, as if half-expecting to find him there, asleep in a chair or leaning against the window frame with that unreadable frown he wore like a second skin. But the room was empty.

Still, the image clung to him. Gurney’s hands—firm, calloused, one on his back and one at the base of his neck, grounding him, soothing him. As if Paul had been aflame and Gurney had placed himself in the path of the fire.

He had been shaking, hadn’t he? After the poison passed—after it yielded to something else. Paul couldn’t remember the moment the danger ended, only the aftermath: Gurney’s chest rising and falling just inches away, the faint scent of salt and wool. A low voice speaking words he couldn’t parse. 

Paul blinked slowly, the ache behind his eyes deepening. He felt hollowed out, scorched down to his bones and then stitched back together with thread too fine to hold.

And yet he was still here,  alive and still breathing. Not broken.

Somewhere, he knew, people were talking. Whispers would already be spreading through the halls of Kaitain’s noble district: the Atreides boy, not so soft after all. Not just pretty, not just pitiful. A survivor. A weapon. Or something worse—something unquantifiable.

Paul closed his eyes again and let the silence stretch. He was not ready to move yet.

Not until he remembered how to have a body again, and not until the shape of Gurney’s arms around him faded enough that he could stand without shaking.

The sheets beneath him still carried the faint ghost of another presence—just the memory of warmth, now faded, but enough to stir something queasy in his stomach. Paul lay very still, his limbs heavy with fatigue and the cloying hangover of memory. But there was no peace in the stillness. His mind, now rousing fully from the fog of the previous night, began feeding him pieces of what he had tried not to remember.

It hadn’t ended with Gurney holding him.

He had clutched Gurney’s shirt with both hands, dragging himself closer—not out of necessity, but want. He had pressed his face into the crook of Gurney’s shoulder and whispered something, low and pleading. Don’t go. Stay with me tonight. The words burned now, replaying with merciless clarity. Paul curled his fingers into the sheets and cursed softly into the silence.

He remembered the way his lips had found Gurney’s throat, too desperate to pass as an accident, the scrape of his teeth at the line of his jaw, the raw pressure of a kiss planted too low to be innocent. He had kissed Gurney. Not chastely. With a hunger that had nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the wild, furious edge that the transmutation had unlocked in him. He had wrapped his arms around the older man’s chest, burying himself in the breadth of it, and when Gurney had tried to pull away—perhaps in shock, perhaps in decency—Paul had bitten down. Just above the left pectoral, teeth catching skin through fabric.

Mine, he had thought, though he had not said it aloud. That much, at least, he had kept to himself.

Now, shame licked up his throat like fire.

He brought a hand to his face, pressing his palm against his eyes as if he could smother the memories by force. His skin felt hot—flushed not with fever, but something else. Beneath the mortification and the indignation at himself, a darker, stranger pulse throbbed low in his belly. His body remembered what it had done. The press of Gurney’s chest under his mouth, the strength of those hands braced on either side of him, the low sound Gurney had made when Paul had marked him.

His breath caught.

This was ridiculous.

He had been poisoned. Had been altered. His blood hadn’t been his own; his mind had been swimming in that awful wine, carrying gods know what engineered delirium from the Tleilaxu. There had been no consent, no clarity. He hadn’t been himself.

He couldn’t let Gurney think it had meant anything.

Paul swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up slowly, head spinning not just from the remnants of the poison but from sheer humiliation. He looked down at his hands—his fingernails dug red crescents into his palms where he’d clenched them in sleep. Everything in his body felt taut, primed with a tension that was neither pain nor pleasure, but the precarious edge between the two.

He breathed in slowly. You are in control now.

He stood, steadied himself against the headboard, and crossed to the basin where water had been left for him in a carved onyx pitcher. He poured it with trembling hands and splashed his face, gasping slightly at the cold. The jolt cleared his vision but did nothing to rinse away the memory of his mouth on Gurney’s skin.

I have to find him, Paul thought, gripping the edge of the washstand until his knuckles whitened. I have to explain. He’ll understand if I explain. It was the poison. The kiss, the bite, the pleading—it wasn’t real.

Even as he thought it, doubt crept in. He wasn’t sure if the act had been real or not. Only that it had been his. The parts of him that wanted to be seen, to be touched, to be taken seriously—not as a figurehead or a relic of Atreides fall, but as a man. He had reached for Gurney because Gurney saw him, and not just in pity. He inhaled through his nose, straightened, and reached for the comm. 

The comm blinked with soft amber light, its polite pulse steady and infuriating. Paul pressed the call button again, jaw tight, fingers curling slightly with each unanswered ring.

No reply.

He exhaled through his nose and stepped back. Gurney hadn’t answered the first call. Or the second. And now, even after five attempts spaced across ten minutes, the silence remained.

He tried again. Still nothing.

The sting of last night deepened—not just shame now, but something rawer: the sour taste of being avoided. Rejected. Paul told himself it made sense. Of course Gurney was keeping his distance. Paul had flung himself across the threshold of dignity and begged the man to stay the night like some fevered child. He had pressed his lips to skin and teeth to muscle and whispered things that couldn’t be unsaid.

Still, the silence felt like punishment.

Frustrated, he turned toward the side table and opened the small communications drawer. The hotel directory glowed to life on a hovering screen. He keyed in the main reception line.

It answered on the second chime.

“This is the Imperial Grand Meridian. How may I assist you, my lord?”

Paul straightened instinctively at the title, though it tasted strange today.

“I’m looking for Gurney Halleck,” he said. “He’s supposed to be staying in this suite.”

“Yes, my lord,” came the efficient reply. “Lord Halleck is registered with us, but he left early this morning.”

Paul’s stomach dropped.

“Where did he go?”

There was a slight pause, the kind meant to smooth over discomfort.

“I believe he went to the Palace for the summit banquet.”

Of course. Of course he was already back to business. As if nothing had happened. As if last night were already folded away into some drawer Gurney never intended to open again.

“Thank you,” Paul said stiffly, and ended the call before the receptionist could say anything else.

He stood there for a moment, hands braced on the edge of the table, his reflection caught faintly in the polished obsidian panel above the comm screen—pale, barefoot, tousle-haired. Nothing Imperial about it.

That wouldn’t do.

Paul turned on his heel and crossed the room to the wardrobe. The attendants had laid out his garments with the same reverent care they afforded visiting royalty. At the center of the ensemble, glowing softly under the lighting strip, was the outfit—his best. The one intended for the final banquet of the summit.

He dressed slowly, methodically, as if each piece of clothing were armor.

The crop top clung to him like a second skin, its fabric a whisper-thin mesh of liquid silver and seafoam green, translucent enough to betray the faint outline of his collarbones, the lean muscles of his chest. Delicate floral embroidery snaked along the hem and collar in sinuous patterns—not a shield, but an invitation, tracing the edges of his body like gilded fingertips. The fabric did little to conceal the dust-rose hue of his nipples, the subtle flex of muscle beneath, even the faint pink mark where Gurney’s stubble must have scraped him the night before. His arms, bare and pale, and the taut plane of his stomach were left unapologetically exposed, as if daring the world to look. 

The trousers came next—black leather, mercilessly cut, hugging his frame with the precision of a weapon’s edge. They traced the lines of his thighs, sculpted the lean muscle of his calves, and offered no ambiguity, no softness, no room for retreat. He had never worn anything so unforgiving, so exact in its intent. He had also never looked quite so dangerous.

When he stood before the mirror, he felt the air catch.

Not decorative.

Powerful.

There was a cost to wearing something like this—it left no room for vulnerability. His body, his name, his House—all of it was exposed, and weaponized. He should have felt ridiculous. He should have torn the thing off and chosen something modest, diplomatic, safe.

Instead, he tilted his chin slightly and studied himself.

Was this for the summit? For the Imperium? For Feyd?

Or was it—still, impossibly— for Gurney?

He wasn’t sure. The question hovered like perfume, seductive and dangerous, without offering any answer.

He turned away from the mirror before he could think better of it.

“Call for a ground car,” he said aloud, activating the voice prompt on the suite’s assistant module.

“Destination?” the automated voice inquired.

Paul reached for a ring of silver and green, slid it onto his finger with practiced ease, and smoothed down the front of his top with both palms.

“The Palace,” he said. “Now.”

***

The Palace of Kaitain had never been a place—it was a performance.

From the moment Paul stepped through its marbled threshold, he was swallowed by opulence so calculated it bordered on violent. The air was chilled to a precise degree, scented faintly with myrrh and polished stone, clean as a cathedral but somehow still suffocating. Light poured through narrow skylights and bounced off gold-veined pillars and inlaid mosaics, striking every surface in deliberate accents. Even the shadows here were styled, arranged to cloak intentions.

Paul walked alone through the reception arcade, flanked by nobles in conversation, dancers twirling through the periphery, and servants gliding soundlessly from guest to guest. Everywhere he looked, there were eyes—bright, curious, appraising. And not one of them dared speak to him directly.

He’d been raised for rooms like this, in theory. Jessica had taught him the names of every House and the fifty subtleties of etiquette—how to incline his head like a ruler, how to let a pause sting more than a slap. But even her instruction hadn’t prepared him for the particular horror of returning to Kaitain not as heir, but as a husband. A kept thing. A curiosity.

And still—they looked.

He saw it in the flickers of gaze that landed and retreated. The way conversations wavered as he passed. The way one minor lord—Athel Caradas, if he remembered correctly—nearly choked on his aperitif when Paul turned in his direction.

The outfit helped, of course.

The sheer crop-top clung to his torso like mist, its fine embroidery shifting and shimmering with every breath. The tight black leather trousers make him feel the brush of every movement, the stretch of every step. He had dressed for the Palace, yes—but the attention still scraped at his nerves like wind over raw skin.

He scanned the atrium as he moved, searching for one face in the tide of polished civility. Gurney was not there. Not by the fountains, where older diplomats held court with half-drunk nobility. Not near the musicians. Not at the far rail, where gossip-mongers lingered with cups of sparkling wine. Paul made a slow pass around the outer edge of the crowd, then cut through the central gallery, weaving among golden sleeves, military medals, and jeweled necklines.

Still nothing.

Where is he?

A knot of irritation coiled low in his gut. Gurney hadn’t answered the calls. Hadn’t sent a word. Hadn’t even left a message at the hotel. And now, apparently, he was here—somewhere—participating in the banquet like everything was exactly as it should be. As if last night hadn’t happened. As if Paul hadn’t begged him to stay. As if Paul’s mouth hadn’t been on his skin.

He drew a breath, deep and controlled, and crossed to the far wall where a row of servants stood, still as sculpture, waiting for orders. Paul selected one—a slim young man with a dusting of gold across his cheekbones and the rigid poise of someone trained to disappear.

“I need to find Gurney Halleck,” Paul said, his voice low but deliberate.

The servant blinked, and Paul added—after the briefest, strangest pause—“My husband.”

The words landed like stones in still water. Not loud, not shocking. But they rippled through something inside him.

He hadn’t said it out loud before, not like that. It felt… strange. A little unreal. Like trying on someone else’s title and realizing it fit too well. But it didn’t sting, if anything, it warmed. Not in his chest, but lower—beneath the shame, beneath the performance, in the place that had held the memory of Gurney’s hands, the pressure of his voice, the tension of his refusal.

The servant inclined his head with an elegant bow. “Of course, my lord. Lord Halleck has been seated in the western banquet hall. This way, if it pleases you.”

Paul nodded once, barely, and fell into step behind him.

They passed beneath a gilded arch and down a columned walkway that opened into deeper shadow. The light here was lower, filtered through amber-hued suspensor lamps and muted mosaic murals. The music thinned as they moved further in, replaced by the low hum of conversation in a more exclusive space.

Paul glanced at his reflection in a pane of smoked glass as they passed. His own eyes startled him for a moment—too sharp, too wide, like a man walking toward a confession or a crime.

He had told himself this was about clarity. About explanation. About control.

But his heart had picked up pace with every step.

At the end of the hallway, two guards flanked a tall set of doors, their armor matte black with burnished trim. They opened at a nod from the servant, and warm light spilled out in a slow, golden flood.

The banquet hall was smaller than the main atrium, but far more intimate—and far more dangerous. Here were the real players. The ones who didn’t bother performing unless they were about to strike.

Paul saw him instantly.

Standing near the head of the crescent table, framed by golden light and the subtle geometry of rank, Gurney Halleck looked—impossibly—at ease. His stance was disciplined yet unforced, one hand loosely holding a half-finished glass of dark wine, the other resting against the back of his chair as if he'd just risen to speak, or perhaps to listen more intently. He wore formal black trimmed in dull bronze thread, the cut emphasizing the breadth of his chest, the taper of his waist, the weight of a body forged in war and tempered by command. His face was half-turned in profile, the sharp line of his cheekbone caught in the glow like a statue hewn from something brutal and enduring.

Paul stopped just past the threshold, struck suddenly dumb.

There was something so stately about him, it was offensive. And worse, something… devastatingly handsome. Gurney had always been many things—reliable, infuriating, distant—but now, dressed like this and bathed in Imperial light, Paul saw him as others must see him. That, more than anything, made Paul’s stomach clench.

And then she laughed.

The woman standing beside Gurney tipped her head back, the cascade of her coppery hair catching the light like it had been designed for this exact moment. Her laugh rang like crystal and honey, pitched perfectly to draw attention without seeming calculated. She leaned closer as she laughed, gloved fingers coming to rest lightly on Gurney's forearm, her nails polished to a mirror shine. Everything about her posture spoke of elegant confidence—the arch of her spine, the angle of her half-empty flute, the way her gown draped just so to emphasize her curves.

She was flirting. Boldly. Comfortably. As if it were hers to do.

A spike of white-hot fury lanced through Paul’s chest.

It was unthinking, unreasonable—pure in its direction and dangerous in its lack of control. It didn’t matter that she was beautiful, or charming, or likely born to flirt like this. It didn’t matter that Gurney hadn’t even touched her. All that mattered was her hand, her laugh, her proximity to his husband.

Paul didn’t realize he’d started moving until the marble floor gave a faint echo beneath his heels.

He strode across the hall with deliberate grace, his back straight and his shoulders loose, every movement a practiced contradiction between fluid and sharp. Heads turned as he passed—he felt it, the collective draw of attention. It shimmered in his passing like moonlight on unsheathed steel. Nobles glanced up from their conversations. A duke’s son did a double-take. A lady in green said something to her friend, not bothering to lower her voice.

His outfit was armor and invitation both. Every brush of air against bare skin felt deliberate, electric—the whisper of embroidered silver at his collarbones, the sinful cling of leather at his hips. He moved like liquid violence given form, each step calculated to make the watching crowd forget how to breathe. The contradiction should have been impossible—this perfect balance between ceremonial grace and raw, undeniable obscenity.

But Paul had never cared for impossibilities.

He could feel a hundred eyes tracking him, a hundred held breaths—and he reveled in it. Let them stare. Let them ache. Only one gaze mattered, one gaze that will burn hotter than all the others combined.

Gurney had turned.

The movement was instantaneous—that old predator’s reflex honed in slave pits and battlefields, the sudden tension in his shoulders as his head came up, his gaze slicing through the murmuring crowd toward the disturbance. When he saw Paul in that obscene, glorious outfit, the embroidery catching the light like a challenge, his breath hitched audibly, his fingers tightening around the wine glass until the stem threatened to snap. His eyes, always so carefully guarded, went dark and fathomless, the pupils swallowing the brown irises like storm clouds devouring the sky, and for one suspended moment, the glass hung frozen midway to his lips, the wine inside trembling as if the very air between them had been punched out of his lungs.

Shock, yes—but not alarm, not disapproval. Something far more dangerous.

Paul knew that look. He’d studied it in the mirror often enough, that fleeting, furious hunger that burned too hot to hide. Desire. Stark and startled, raw enough to border on violence, as if Gurney wanted to both devour him and shove him back against the nearest wall just to prove he could. It was there in the way his throat worked around a soundless curse, in the way his free hand flexed at his side like he was already imagining the weight of Paul’s hips beneath his palms. He looked ruined, his usual composure fractured, his lips parted around a breath that wasn’t quite steady—and Paul reveled in it, in the knowledge that he’d done this, that he could unravel a man who’d survived Harkonnen torture with nothing but bravery and strength.

He didn’t break stride.

With every step, the whispers crescendoed around him, the crowd parting like wheat before a scythe, but Paul didn’t care. He closed the distance between them with the inevitability of a blade finding its mark, his chin lifted, his pulse a wild, reckless drumbeat in his throat. It was his divine right, this moment, this claiming —not just of Gurney’s attention, but of every staring noble in the room, every jealous glance, every stifled gasp. Let them see. Let them burn. The entire damned Imperium could crumble to dust for all he cared, so long as Gurney kept looking at him like that—like he was the only thing left worth worshiping.

“Husband?”  

Paul hadn’t planned the words, the phrase slipping from his lips like honey layered over poison, effortless and intimate in a way that startled even him. “I was looking for you everywhere.”

He had used the word before—a standard, formal word for the situation they both found themselves in. But now the phrase landed differently. It was soft, strangely indulgent, and not at all the kind of thing one said in the hallowed halls of the Imperial banquet, in front of half a dozen noble houses and at least three veiled enemies. But even as the word echoed between them—unmistakable in its familiarity—Paul felt no urge to take it back. In fact, the moment it left him, it settled like poison, thick and slow, seeping into the air and commanding attention.

Gurney didn’t respond immediately—he couldn’t, apparently. He stared at Paul with the expression of a man who had been struck not by violence, but by sudden flash of light in the dark, blinking, unmoving, wineglass forgotten in one hand and the curve of his mouth parted just enough to suggest breathlessness. The older man looked almost… dazed.

Which made the next moment all the more satisfying.

Because beside him, the woman had not missed a syllable of what Paul had said. Nor, it seemed, had she missed the way Paul had spoken it—with the casual grace of someone returning to his rightful place. Her smile faltered at first in a blink, then in degrees, like a porcelain mask beginning to show the first spidering fractures of a hairline crack. Her fingers lifted—barely—but enough to draw back from Gurney’s arm in a move she probably thought subtle. It wasn’t.

And Paul, to his quiet delight, felt something deep and mean uncoil inside him like a satisfied animal.

He stepped into the space between them with the same instinct he used on a training floor—assertive, unapologetic, smooth. His shoulder brushed Gurney’s chest, and he could feel the warmth radiating off the man’s body, the tension gathering there like smoke under pressure. He hadn’t thought about what to do next—hadn’t planned any sort of grand gesture or power play. But his body, sharper than his mind at times, moved with the confidence of something ancient and blood-deep.

He leaned in and pressed his lips to Gurney’s.

Not a showy kiss. Just a peck. But one that landed precisely, intentionally, right on Gurney’s mouth.

It was enough.

Paul felt the moment ripple through Gurney like a pulse—his breath caught, his shoulders stiffened slightly under the contact, and his mouth, slightly parted, did not resist, though it didn’t quite respond either. There was no hesitation in Paul, only decision. It was a kiss meant to claim, to mark, and most importantly—to be seen.

And it was seen.

He pulled back just as quickly as he’d leaned in, not lingering long enough to turn the moment into something private. No—this was a public thing, and it was meant to be. The kiss was brief, yes, but it was impossible to misinterpret, and as Paul turned to face the woman beside Gurney once again, his lips still tingled faintly with wine and warmth and something he did not want to name.

The woman’s face, to her credit, had only cracked a little more. She smiled still, but now the smile had a stiffness to it, like a veil hastily re-draped over a ruined statue. Her eyes, rimmed with tastefully shimmering liner, had lost their easy glow. She looked at Paul like one might look at a puzzle that had suddenly grown teeth.

Paul smiled back, brilliantly.

And then, turning just slightly, addressing Gurney but keeping his gaze locked on her, he said with all the elegance of a dagger being unwrapped in silk, “Won’t you introduce us?”

There was a beat—just one—in which Gurney said nothing. A single, golden pause, stretched so thin it might have snapped. Paul could almost feel Gurney recalibrating beside him, as if his brain were sorting through the night before, the shock of Paul’s appearance, the kiss, the husband, the stare, the triumph, the theatre of it all, and trying to catch up.

But Paul wasn’t going to wait.

Not today.

Not when he could still see the faint outline of that woman’s fingers on Gurney’s sleeve, not when the sight of her laughing beside his husband made something illogical and molten twist low in his stomach. It wasn’t strategy that had driven him here, not politics or defense.

It was jealousy.

Unfiltered. Visceral. And, to his faint horror, pleasurable.

Because now, Gurney was looking at him like the whole hall had faded, like the lights had dimmed, and Paul had become the only bright thing left.

And Paul—dressed in the shimmering obscenity and tight leather—wasn’t about to give that feeling back. Not yet.

The air between them thrummed with too much tension for words—Paul could practically hear the gears turning behind Gurney’s eyes, the split-second conflict between protocol and disbelief, between how things should be and how they were unfolding now, under the piercing gaze of nobles, servants, and, most pointedly, the woman beside him.

Then, at last, Gurney cleared his throat.

It wasn’t a subtle sound—it carried, low and rough and undeniable, like someone shaking off sleep or restraint. He straightened slightly, though his posture had already been perfect, and turned just enough to address the woman still lingering beside him, her smile now a thing stretched too thin to be real.

“Lady Ordos,” Gurney said, voice pitched formally but edged with something warmer, something realer, “please meet my husband, Paul Atreides.”

The words landed like fire down Paul’s spine.

My husband.

Not “my partner” or any of the other artful euphemisms that could have been employed to make their bond seem clinical, impersonal, distanced. No. Gurney had said it plainly. Claimed him. Without hesitation.

My husband.

Paul’s breath caught somewhere behind his sternum, and a warm, dizzying rush moved through his body like heat spilling from a cup—unexpected and almost too much. It ran down the back of his neck, swept across his shoulders, and coiled low in his stomach like something molten. He held Gurney’s gaze for the briefest instant—long enough to know Gurney had meant every syllable—and something primal fluttered in his chest, wings beating wildly.

Gurney turned toward him then, offering a faint gesture of introduction that was more for form than necessity. “Paul, please meet Lady Beatrice of the Great House of Ordos.”

Paul barely heard the words. They passed over him like static, meaningless syllables clinging to names he didn’t care about. His attention had shifted, fully and irrevocably, to the warm pressure of Gurney’s hand now resting—deliberately, casually, possessively—on the small of his back.

He hadn’t even noticed when it landed there.

But now he noticed everything.

The weight of it. The shape. The unmistakable heat radiating from Gurney’s palm pressed directly to his bare skin. His spine arched almost imperceptibly under the touch, like a bow reacting to tension, instinctive and reflexive. His breath stuttered in his throat, not from surprise but from the sheer rightness of it—like Gurney had touched some hidden button in him, some nerve that didn’t belong to logic or pride or dignity.

Paul could hardly think.

He certainly didn’t look at the Lady again, whose mouth was moving now in some pleasant acknowledgment, whose expression he imagined was one of forced civility and tactical retreat. But she could have curtsied or burst into flames and Paul wouldn’t have noticed. His entire awareness had shrunk to the point of contact, to where Gurney’s hand splayed gently against the dip of his spine, fingers firm and warm and steady, anchoring him to the moment in a way that was both mortifying and addictive.

What is happening to me?

The question rang in his mind like a bell struck too hard. He wasn’t supposed to react like this. He wasn’t supposed to feel this. Not here. Not now. His body, already overheated from jealousy and the rush of performance, now hummed with an entirely different kind of heat. His skin prickled under Gurney’s touch; his mouth was suddenly dry. The hall seemed brighter, louder, as if the senses themselves had gone traitorous.

It’s the aftereffect of the poison, he told himself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline. It must be. Some lingering chemical imbalance. Residual intoxication. That’s all.

But even as he tried to rationalize it, even as he willed himself to step away or clear his throat or speak something appropriate, his body refused him. He didn’t step away.

Instead, he leaned in.

Slowly. Unthinkingly. Inevitable as breath.

He turned his face toward Gurney’s, tilted ever so slightly upward, and brought his mouth close—not to kiss this time, but to speak, though even that felt dangerous now.

“I need to talk to you,” he whispered, and as the words brushed the edge of Gurney’s ear, his lips grazed skin—barely, softly, a brush of warmth that wasn’t quite innocent.

And still he didn’t pull back.

The curve of Gurney’s ear was there, vulnerable and maddeningly close, and Paul hovered for half a heartbeat too long, caught in the gravity of it, so close to pressing his mouth further, to letting his tongue follow the path his lips had teased. His breath ghosted along the shell, and it took everything— everything —not to lean in that final inch.

He could feel Gurney go very still beside him. Not tense. Not recoiling. Just… still. As if the older man had been struck breathless again, locked in place by something neither of them had yet named.

Paul’s heart thundered, loud and fast, too fast for calm, too fast for cleverness.

And all around them, the banquet continued—unaware, or pretending to be—while something inside Paul threatened to shift entirely.

Gurney’s breath was warm against his cheek, and for a moment it seemed he wouldn’t speak—that he’d stay rooted in that frozen space between reaction and restraint, caught in the invisible heat flickering between them. But then, just barely above a murmur, Gurney said, “Will you excuse us, my lady.”

It sounded like a brusque formality, a closing of a door with words. Paul didn’t turn to see the woman’s reaction. He didn’t need to. She had already ceased to matter.

Gurney’s arm slid more firmly around his waist, his fingers spreading low across Paul’s side, steady and commanding. Paul followed the lead without question, without hesitation. He let himself be guided through the golden spill of light and conversation, across the banquet hall’s echoing floor, through a ripple of hushed attention. The murmurs began as they passed—small glances, half-turned heads, the familiar glint of gossip born mid-breath.

And Paul found, to his faint surprise, that he liked it.

Being seen—truly seen —next to Gurney like this. Not as a ward or a political hostage or some ornamental and silent Atreides heir trapped in satin. No, they saw something else now. A pairing. A match. A husband, as Gurney had named him. And Paul basked in that attention like sunlight warming skin gone too long cold. He kept his head high, his posture fluid, and let Gurney steer him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The corridor they entered was quieter, darker, lit only by a line of small suspensor lamps that bathed the high walls in amber glow. Their footsteps echoed differently here—less ceremonial, more private. Paul felt his heartbeat climbing, half in anticipation, half in confusion. His own body was humming beneath the surface, nerves raw from sensation, still lit by the aftermath of Gurney’s hand and that infuriatingly tender introduction.

A right turn. Then a door—unmarked, heavy, likely used for diplomatic whispers or secret negotiations.

Gurney opened it, glanced inside, and then gently ushered Paul through with a palm still warm on his waist.

The door closed behind them with a soft, definitive click.

The room was small and dim, likely an unused lounge for courtiers in retreat. Velvet seating along the walls, a carved sideboard with long-dried flowers in a vase, and a heavy curtain pulled across a tall arched window. Dust floated in the air, visible in the slanted light, suspended like breath held too long.

The silence wrapped around them like a blanket. Then Gurney spoke.

“How are you feeling?”

His voice was quieter now, gentle, almost cautious. The soldier’s steel had given way to something else—concern, maybe, or guilt carefully disguised as duty.

“You should rest,” he added, already stepping closer, “after all that happened yesterday. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

His hand lifted slowly and cupped Paul’s cheek, rough palm brushing against delicate skin, his thumb skimming just beneath Paul’s eye in a motion too soft to be merely diagnostic. But he was checking—checking for fever, for weariness, for the tremble that had overtaken Paul the day before when poison laced his veins.

Paul let his eyes flutter half-shut under the touch.

“I’m fine now,” he said, voice low and even, his hands coming up to rest lightly on Gurney’s shoulders. The fabric beneath his fingers was warm, the body beneath even warmer, broad and solid and dangerously close. He meant to say something more—meant to apologize, perhaps, for the kiss, for the clumsy press of desperation in a poisoned moment.

But all he could think about, all he could feel, was the distance between them—thin as a thread, fraying.

His thumbs pressed gently into the line of Gurney’s neck. “Gurney,” he breathed, the name unsteady on his lips, more emotion than syllable.

And before Gurney could speak, before he could step back or offer a reasonable word, Paul leaned in and captured his mouth in a kiss.

This one wasn’t a peck. Wasn’t calculated or ceremonial. It was heat and hunger and tangled breath. It was a collision of mouths and intention, Paul’s lips parting against Gurney’s with open need, hands tightening on his shoulders, pulling him closer.

Gurney groaned against his lips—quiet, strained, almost pained—and then kissed back.

Hard.

Paul barely had time to gasp before he was being walked backwards, slowly but relentlessly, Gurney’s hands sliding down to grip his hips, his breath hot and fast between kisses that grew more desperate with every step. Their teeth knocked once—clumsy, breathless—but neither of them cared. Paul let himself be led, heart hammering in his chest, blood roaring in his ears, until his back hit the wall with a soft thud.

Then Gurney’s mouth left his and found the hollow of his neck.

The change was sudden—shockingly intimate. Gurney’s lips were softer here, his tongue trailing fire along the line of Paul’s throat, licking up the sweat already forming there. Paul’s head tipped back against the wall, breath catching, hands gripping at Gurney’s jacket as the older man sucked at the delicate skin just below his collarbone.

“You look so fucking gorgeous,” Gurney whispered against him, voice hoarse, almost reverent, as if Paul had ruined him just by existing.

The words crashed over Paul like a wave—hot, raw, and dizzying. Then Gurney bit, not hard enough to hurt, but deep enough to leave something behind.

Paul gasped, the sound half-strangled in his throat.

What are we doing? the question rang through his mind, chaotic and pointless, already fading.

Because at this moment—with Gurney’s mouth against his neck, Gurney’s hands holding him like something treasured and dangerous at once—Paul wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

The knock never came.

Instead, the door to the quiet room flew open in a gust of careless motion, banging softly against the wall and flooding the dim space with a sudden wash of bright corridor light. Paul barely had time to lift his head from where it had lolled back against the wall, lips kiss-swollen and skin still tingling, before the voices arrived—laughing, tipsy, utterly oblivious.

“Oh—oops!” a woman’s voice chirped, high with drunken amusement, followed by the unmistakable titter of someone leaning too hard on someone else. “Someone’s already here!”

Paul blinked into the doorway, disoriented, heart pounding, sweat cooling too fast on the back of his neck.

A man’s voice followed, low and slurred: “Shit, sorry—our bad! Didn’t mean to interrupt. Have fun, guys!”

They were already backing out before Paul could register them—blurry figures in finery, perfume thick in the air. The door swung slowly shut behind them, clicking back into place with a final, traitorous neatness.

The silence that followed wasn’t soft this time. It landed like a slap. Gurney stepped away from him immediately.

One moment, Paul had been pinned against the wall, body cradled between heat and velvet and the steady rhythm of Gurney’s mouth at his throat, and the next—emptiness. Cold air rushed over the places where hands had held him, where lips had worshipped him. He looked up, still dazed, only to see Gurney walking to the other end of the room with long, purposeful strides, not even looking back.

Paul’s hands dropped to his sides. His chest rose and fell quickly, his breath uneven, his trousers uncomfortably tight, and every inch of his skin oversensitive in the aftermath.

“Oh God,” Gurney muttered, turning away from him entirely, scrubbing both hands over his face like he could erase the moment with friction. His voice was hoarse, stripped of composure. “Oh, this is insane.”

He didn’t sound angry, not really, just stunned. Exhausted. Maybe even scared.

Paul didn’t answer at first.

He couldn’t. His pulse was still racing, pounding behind his eyes, echoing in the hollow ache in his hips. His erection pulsed in his skin-tight trousers, painful and insistent, and the worst part— the worst part —was that he still wanted Gurney’s hands back on him. Even now. Especially now.

He swallowed hard. His throat was dry. His lips were still damp from where Gurney had kissed him.

His fingers curled against his thighs. “Gurney,” he started, voice low, thick with something he hadn’t had time to name yet. “I—”

But he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

I’m sorry (but I wanted this) 

What happens now? (please don’t stop)

None of it felt right or enough. Gurney turned to face him then, arms crossed tightly across his chest as if trying to hold himself together. His eyes met Paul’s, but only briefly.

“No,” Gurney said, voice firm now, cutting through whatever Paul might have tried to say. “Don’t.”

He gestured toward one of the plush chairs along the wall—a heavy-backed thing in forest green, its velvet cushion worn slightly from years of Imperial use.

“Go sit down in that chair,” he said, tone slipping into something older, something commanding and almost fatherly, though Paul bristled immediately at the edge of it. “We need to talk.”

Paul didn’t move. Not at first.

He felt flushed all over, his skin burning and his pride tangled in his ribs. His jaw clenched slightly, though he said nothing. Part of him wanted to argue, to defy, to close the space again and kiss Gurney until he gave in, until nothing else existed.

But another part—quieter, colder—knew the moment had passed.

The interruption had shattered it, like a dropped glass. Pieces of what had been unspoken now glittered dangerously in the air between them. The heat hadn’t vanished, but it had fractured. And now they stood on opposite ends of the room, caught between impulse and consequence.

Paul drew in a slow breath and exhaled. Then, without another word, he crossed to the chair and sat, every movement stiff with the effort of holding himself together.

He rested his hands on his knees, trying to keep them from shaking, and looked up at Gurney. He didn’t know what came next. But he knew they had already passed the point of pretending nothing had changed.

Across the room, Gurney remained standing. He paced once, then stopped, bracing a hand on the window frame. He didn’t look at Paul. Not directly. He looked instead at the darkness outside the window—as if eye contact were too dangerous, too tempting, a single glance away from unmaking all the distance they’d just barely managed to reestablish.

When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, tinged with that particular guilt Gurney wore like old armor.

“First,” he began, clearing his throat unnecessarily, “I want to apologize for leaving you.”

Paul stilled.

Gurney continued, his words coming with the weight of something practiced and hard-won, like he’d repeated them silently to himself for hours and was only now daring to give them voice.

“I had to go to that cursed banquet. And the medic reassured me it would only be a mild aftereffect. That the worst was over. That you would rest through the night and wake up feeling mostly like yourself again.”

He shifted his weight, shoulders tightening, gaze still fixed on something that wasn’t Paul. “I should’ve stayed,” he added quietly. “I know that now.”

Paul exhaled sharply, not quite a sigh, not quite a scoff—just the sound of emotion catching in his chest and pushing outward. He looked down at his lap, at the way his trousers stretched over the tension in his thighs, at the faint shimmer of silver thread at the hem of his top catching in the light. His heart beat harder than it should have, his blood too warm in his veins.

He could only imagine how it would have ended if he had opened his eyes to find Gurney sitting beside him—slouched in the chair by the bed, his broad shoulders hunched forward, one calloused hand braced under his bearded chin. Paul, still warm from sleep, still not entirely himself, would have seen him there and said something reckless, something soft. He would’ve reached for Gurney’s hand, maybe without thinking. Would’ve kissed his wrist. Would’ve whispered something that would’ve set fire to the quiet.

And Gurney wouldn’t have pulled away.

Not there, not then.

Paul would have guided his hand down, across the sheets, across skin that was already warm and wanting. The blankets would have fallen back. Paul would have opened for him easily, eagerly, still dazed but very much alive. And there would’ve been no drunk couple to interrupt them. No walls to retreat behind. Just their mingled breath and heat and hands, and the weight of the man Paul had wanted for far longer than he dared admit—finally there, finally his.

The image bloomed too vividly behind Paul’s eyes, and the heat crept up his neck like rising steam, his skin flushing red beneath the sheer fabric of his top. His cheeks burned with it. His cock twitched again, still half-hard and aching in the confines of leather that left nothing to hide. He bit down gently on his lower lip, lowering his eyes to the floor in an effort to get control of himself. But it was no use.

Gurney was across the room. Gurney had touched him. Gurney had kissed him.

And Paul still wanted more.

“I want to apologize, too,” he said quietly, his voice slipping from his mouth like a confession, breathy and unsure, but honest. “For everything I did yesterday.”

He paused, but didn’t add the words and today. He didn’t know if he could. The skin around his mouth still tingled from the rasp of Gurney’s stubble. His neck still pulsed with the faint sting of a bite that had not been gentle. His lips still remembered the shape of the kiss they’d shared against the wall.

Part of him wanted to apologize for that, too. A much larger part didn’t.

Gurney turned toward him finally, expression unreadable, but something in his eyes already knew what Paul wasn’t saying.

“This is not your fault,” Gurney said quickly, almost too quickly. “That was the poison.”

He sounded almost desperate to make that the end of it—to wrap the whole mess in clinical explanation, tuck it into the folder of ‘unusual side effects’ and never open it again.

“The medic told me the most dangerous part was over,” Gurney continued, taking a half-step forward but catching himself. “So I figured… I figured you wouldn’t want to wake up to a guardsman sitting next to your bedside.”

Paul’s head lifted. His eyes locked onto Gurney’s, and this time he didn’t look away.

“I want you,” he blurted out, before he could think better of it.

The words hung there for a moment—sharp, burning, impossible to take back.

Paul swallowed hard, his whole face hot, the flush reaching the tips of his ears now, his fingers curling into the plush upholstery of the chair to keep himself from unraveling completely.

“I meant—” he faltered, breath catching, “I wanted you sitting next to my bedside when I woke up.”

Gurney’s eyes widened slightly, and his whole body went still.

Paul could see the effort in the older man’s face—how hard he was trying not to react. Not to let his hands twitch or his jaw clench or his mouth fall open with some sound that might give him away. But Paul saw it anyway. He saw the flicker of emotion behind Gurney’s restraint, the vulnerable echo of what if that passed silently between them.

“But you weren’t there,” Paul finished, softer this time. “You weren’t.”

And he didn’t say what he really meant— And it hurt. And I don’t know why. And I wanted to wake up to you, not anyone else.

But Gurney heard it. He heard it all.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, his voice barely above a whisper, so quiet it might have been meant for himself alone, but it landed with weight in the stillness between them. “I had been there. All through the night. I stayed until just before dawn, but I had to leave for the banquet. I should’ve left you a note. I should have—” He exhaled harshly, rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m so—”

“Don’t be,” Paul cut in gently, the interruption immediate and sincere. He lifted his gaze to meet Gurney’s, or what he could see of it from across the room, the older man still turned partially away, face carved in profile. “You did more than you had to, staying with me through the night. I can’t imagine anyone else doing that—not out of duty, not the way you did. Did you have any sleep at all?”

Gurney let out something close to a tired chuckle, the sound short and dry. “No,” he admitted, still not facing Paul. “But I needed to meet with my security team anyway. We had to ensure the supply chain couldn’t be tampered with again.” He paused, then added more softly, “Our wine is safe now, Paul. And that’s all because of you—because you risked your life.”

Paul drew a careful breath, something hot and nameless curling under his sternum—too sharp for pride, too hungry for mere satisfaction.

“You’d have done the same if you were in my place,” he said, rising to his feet with a fluid movement that betrayed how much energy still burned under his skin, restless and needing somewhere to go. He walked across the room without hurry, his heels making no sound on the soft rugs, until he came to a slow stop behind Gurney, who stood with his broad back turned toward the tall window, shoulders squared as if braced against something heavy.

Paul reached out with care, his hand rising until his palm came to rest gently against the space between Gurney’s shoulder blades. The heat there radiated through the fabric, grounding him instantly.

“Because that’s what husbands do,” he said, voice low but certain, the words slipping out with more ease than he expected.

Gurney turned at that—slowly, reluctantly, as though something in him knew that if he faced Paul again now, really looked at him, he would be pulled right back into the gravity he’d been struggling so hard to resist. And Paul felt it—the shift in the air, the pull that crackled like static between them the moment their eyes met again.

Gurney’s gaze dropped almost immediately from Paul’s face—traced the line of his jaw, the curve of his neck, the shape of his chest beneath the sheer fabric that shimmered like sea foam in the angled light. His eyes lingered, as if against his will, sliding down the faintly visible dip of Paul’s stomach, just under the intricate embroidery curling at the hem of the crop top. Paul felt his skin prickle under that look—an awareness that started low in his belly and moved outward like a ripple through water.

“Do you like my outfit?” he asked, not teasing exactly, but not entirely innocent either, his lips twitching with the beginnings of a smirk.

Gurney’s throat worked visibly. He swallowed hard, and it took him a moment to respond.

“It’s… a bold choice,” he muttered finally, the words stiff in his mouth, like they’d taken effort to assemble.

Paul laughed softly, a sound halfway between a breath and a challenge. “Five minutes ago you said I looked gorgeous,” he reminded him, head tilting just slightly.

This time, Gurney smiled—and not the polite, distant kind he wore for dignitaries or courtiers, but something warmer, something tired and full of ache, as though he’d surrendered a little, if only for this moment.

“You do look gorgeous,” Gurney said, softer now, and the way he said it made Paul feel as if his name had just been spoken without being said.

The compliment landed differently this time—not as performance, not as seduction, but as truth. It made Paul’s breath slow, made the heat in his belly swirl, thick and heavy. He stepped closer, close enough that the tips of his fingers brushed again against the curve of Gurney’s arms. His hands slid upward, over the sturdy line of Gurney’s shoulders, and he felt the way the muscles tensed under his touch.

“You look gorgeous too,” Paul murmured, meaning it completely, his voice more vulnerable than he’d intended, because saying it out loud required more courage than he expected.

And then—without warning—Gurney’s hands came up, thick fingers closing around Paul’s wrists, not rough but firm, steadying him like shackles.

“No, Paul,” Gurney said, and the warmth in his voice had given way to something strained and desperate and tired. He sighed, his brow furrowing as his thumbs brushed once against Paul’s pulse, like he was memorizing the rhythm before pulling away. “Now I need you to listen to me.”

Paul’s lips parted, his breath catching, a dozen protests springing to his tongue and dying there.

Because Gurney wasn’t just pushing him away—he was struggling.

And that, more than any rejection, rooted Paul to the floor.

Waiting. Listening. Heart loud in his ears. Want still coursing just beneath his skin.

“My security team thinks this is not over yet,” Gurney said, his voice shifting into something low and heavy, the kind of tone that sent men to war or warned them they were already standing in it. “The attack on our House.”

Our House.

The phrase hit Paul with the gentleness of a falling feather—and for one suspended moment, it softened the air between them. Our. It had never sounded like that before. It curled around Paul’s ribs and held on.

But the rest came quickly after.

“They think the next step will be a killing attempt.”

Paul’s breath caught, sharp and involuntary.

“Oh God,” he said, his voice cracking around the words as his mind raced through endless possibilities: poison in the air vents, a hunter-seeker, some other fatal ‘accident’. “Then we need to leave this place. Now. As fast as we can.”

Gurney nodded slowly. “I can’t leave yet.”

Paul’s gut dropped.

“But you will,” Gurney continued, his tone firmer now. “You’ll be on the last ship out tonight. I’ve already arranged it. There’s space set aside for you and a security detail I trust. They’ll see you back safely.”

Paul didn’t move. His body just… refused.

He could barely breathe. “You…” he said, and his voice cracked with disbelief. “You what? That’s your plan? To stay here and wait for someone to slip a blade between your ribs while I am on a planet a hundred light years away from here?”

“I have responsibilities here—”

“To whom?” Paul snapped. “To your House? Or to your pride?”

“I have to stay, Paul,” Gurney said, and now his voice was fraying at the edges. “We have to keep the summit stable. The threat has to be managed—”

“Then I’ll stay too.”

“No.”

Paul took a step closer. “I’m not leaving you here, Gurney.”

“You are.”

Paul clenched his fists at his sides. “And what, exactly, gives you the right to decide that for me?”

Gurney didn’t answer at first. He looked away, jaw tight, muscles moving in his throat as he worked through a thousand unsaid things.

“Because it’s too dangerous for you here!” he barked finally, all that restraint snapping like a rope yanked too tight. “I won’t risk your life. Not after—” he faltered, mouth twitching like he was about to say something truer than he meant. “Not after yesterday.”

Paul stared at him. His throat tightened. “And that gives you the right to command me like I’m a child?” he asked, voice lowering now, sharper. “To pack me off like I’m some glass ornament you’re afraid to break?”

Gurney didn’t answer.

“I’m your husband,” Paul pressed. “Not your hostage or your bedwarmer. Not a goddamn piece of cargo.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like it.”

Gurney sighed, exasperated, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Paul, you don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand just fine,” Paul cut in. “You don’t trust me to make my own decisions. You don’t even see me as your equal.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Paul challenged. “Because you made this decision without me. Just like that. Go home, Paul. Let the adults handle it. That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

“I’m trying to keep you alive,” Gurney growled.

“And I’m trying to keep you alive!” Paul shouted back. “Why do you get to throw yourself into danger, and I get a goddamn babysitter?”

“Because if something happened to you—” Gurney stopped himself, his voice dropping suddenly quiet. He looked away. “I wouldn’t survive it.”

Paul’s heart stuttered, but the anger was too loud, too hot to let that land.

“You don’t own my life,” he said coldly, every syllable biting deep. “You don’t get to make these choices for me.”

“No,” Gurney said slowly, “I don’t. But I’ll make this one.”

Paul’s pulse slammed in his throat. “You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’ll obey you.”

“If necessary,” Gurney said, eyes locking on him at last, “I’ll put you on that ship by force.”

Paul stared, stunned.

“Don’t tempt me.” Gurney added, his voice dangerously calm. 

Paul took a step forward, every part of him burning, trembling, alive with fury. “Gurney Halleck, you are a—” he broke off, his mouth open, his tongue searching for a curse strong enough to match what boiled inside him. “—a fucking asshole!”

The words spilled from his mouth like lit oil, and he felt them catch fire the moment they left him—irreversible, searing the silence between them. For half a second, Gurney didn’t move, didn’t speak, and Paul could see the way the older man’s breath stalled, like he was about to protest, to say something that would only make it worse—but Paul didn’t wait for any of it. He couldn’t.

His body moved before his mind could catch up. He spun on his heel, rage driving every step as he crossed the room, without looking back—not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew if he did, if he let himself see Gurney’s face again, he might stop. And stopping now would feel too much like surrender.

His hand slammed against the door, wrenched it open, and the light from the corridor flared like a slap across his flushed face. He stepped through the threshold with his heart battering at his ribs like a beast in a cage and, without pausing, without thinking, he threw the door shut behind him with all the force his arm could muster.

The bang of it echoed, long and thunderous and final, reverberating down the corridor behind him.

Chapter Text

After Paul ran from the room, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that echoed too loud in the sudden stillness, Gurney didn’t move. He remained rooted to the spot, breath caught somewhere between his chest and throat, as if his body refused to go on until it could make sense of what he had just done. The taste of Paul was still on his lips, like the lingering trace of a forbidden prayer, and all he could feel was shame coiled tightly in his gut. He shouldn't have kissed him—God, what had he been thinking? Paul had been too vulnerable; and Gurney, who had sworn to protect him above all else, had reached for him not with the hands of a guardian, but with the hunger of a man too long denied.

It had been reckless. Stupid. Dangerous.

Yes, the situation they were in was precarious—every shadow on this planet whispered of danger, every smile was a mask—but Gurney had faced treachery before. He had dealt with business rivals with sweet words and poisoned tongues . He knew the game, knew the stakes. But Paul... Paul had no real understanding of the cruelty people could summon when power and profit were on the table. He was brilliant, cunning, trained beyond his years—but still, in Gurney’s mind, too young to be here. Too precious.

And yet Gurney wanted him. Wanted him in a way that went beyond politics and forced vows and all the damned rules that should have stopped him. Every moment without Paul was a dull ache, and now—now that he was hard in his trousers, painfully aware of what could have been if he hadn't pulled away—it was worse. It was unbearable.

He groaned softly and rubbed both hands over his face, dragging the heat of shame and longing downward. Then he exhaled, slow and deep, trying to cage the fire inside his chest and force his thoughts back into the realm of reason. There was no time for this. No space for desire.

He tapped the comm behind his ear. “Lanville. Report.”

“Yes, sir.” There was some shuffling, a pause. “The young master is... em... socializing.”

In the background, Gurney could make out the faint thrum of music, muffled voices, laughter—the sounds of people who had no idea how close everything teetered to disaster.

“Keep an eye on him,” he said, voice hoarse but steady. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yes, sir,” Lanville replied. The line went dead.

And for a moment longer, Gurney stood there alone, aching with the weight of restraint.

When he stepped back into the hall, the swell of conversation and clinking glasses met him like a dissonant tide, but it all faded into a muted hum the moment his eyes found Paul—because of course he saw him instantly. How could he not, when that slender, pearl-pale back was practically glowing under the ambient light, the sheer fabric of his ridiculous, provocative crop-top doing absolutely nothing to conceal the lean planes of his body? The hem hovered just above his waistline, a deliberate tease, exposing the dip of his spine, the arch of his lower back, and the bare stretch of skin that made Gurney’s throat go dry. It was obscene—more than obscene—and yet Paul stood there with his back to the entrance, posture elegant, back arched just slightly in that provocative way that felt accidental only if you didn’t know him. 

Gurney’s gaze dragged lower, helplessly, and his jaw clenched as his eyes caught on the tight, glossy leather wrapping Paul’s narrow hips and legs, leaving every curve, every contour on full display—the taut shape of Paul’s thighs, the firm swell of his ass outlined in slick, unforgiving leather, the way the material clung and creased with every subtle movement, as if it had been molded to his body solely for the purpose of driving Gurney mad. There was nothing left to the imagination, and Gurney imagined plenty anyway. His cock gave a twitch, and he swore softly under his breath, feeling the pulse of blood that rushed traitorously downward.

He stalked forward, forcing himself to keep his pace even, trying not to look like a man on the verge of losing control. And yet with every step closer, with every breath that filled his nose with the faint trace of Paul’s cologne—cedar and seawater, deep and dangerous—he could feel his composure unraveling.

Since when did Paul start dressing like this? He hadn’t worn anything even remotely like it on Chusuk. Not in Gurney’s presence, anyway. But then again, Gurney had never taken him anywhere on Chusuk—never to parties or dinners, never to the glittering circles of social life he had always kept at a distance. Paul had been kept away, locked behind the gates of their estate, untouched and unseen by anyone but Gurney himself.

And now… now he stood in the center of a foreign hall, dressed like a fantasy Gurney had never dared let himself imagine, and surrounded by people who stared at him like he was something they had a right to touch. And standing far too close to him, like a pair of vultures, were Albert and Linda Ashby.

Of course.

Gurney felt his jaw tighten.

House Ashby—another old Imperial vintner line, but unlike his own, their reputation had always been built more on marketing than merit, more flash than substance. He’d spent years watching them pour gold into hollow barrels, hiring fawning courtiers and dazzle-smiled ambassadors to sell vinegar in crystal bottles. 

Paul turned just as Gurney approached—the expression on his face made Gurney’s stomach knot. Paul’s mouth curled upward in a smile that was all venom. His eyes were a smolder, deep and unreadable, the anger within them banked for now—but very much alive.

“Gurney,” Paul said with infuriating poise, his voice lilting with a cheerfulness that sounded theatrical, not warm. “Do you know Albert and his spouse Linda from the House of Ashby?”

His tone—polished, cutting, sweet like sugared poison—was the kind that made Gurney’s skin crawl with guilt. He recognized that voice. Paul wasn’t just angry. He was performing his anger, layering it under elegance, wrapping it in the smooth satin of courtly civility. A knife, honed to perfection.

“I’ve had the pleasure,” Gurney replied coolly, casting a glance at Albert’s crimson lapels—embroidered with a vineyard logo that was suspiciously similar to one Gurney had trademarked six years ago. “Though we usually meet across auction floors, not buffets.”

Albert, already a little flushed, clapped Gurney on the shoulder like they were old drinking companions. “Oh come now, Lord Halleck—no hard feelings. There’s enough thirst in the Imperium for both our barrels, isn’t there?”

“That depends on whose barrels are still drinkable after a year,” Gurney said flatly, his smile fixed. He let his hand fall, gently but purposefully, to Paul’s waist—bare, narrow, radiating heat through skin that felt like silk soaked in sunlight. His fingers spread instinctively, possessive without meaning to be, and Paul shot him a glance from beneath long lashes—sharp, scorching, but he didn’t pull away. That small mercy almost undid Gurney.

Linda, as usual, didn’t speak right away. She simply watched Gurney with cool, assessing eyes, her jeweled hand wrapped loosely around the stem of a flute. She turned back to Paul. “We were just telling your husband how fascinating we find his role in your…domestic arrangements,” she said, each word carefully dipped in acid. “Such a fresh approach to politics. And such a style.”

Paul laughed lightly. “You know me—I do like to make an impression.”

Albert leaned closer to him, too close for Gurney’s taste. “I was saying,” he went on, “if Lord Halleck’s estate is looking to expand to the Vinedraw corridor, we might be interested in coordinating shipments. There’s a storage hub we’re negotiating access to, very hush-hush—might be profitable if we, ah, aligned interests.”

Paul tilted his head, feigning innocence. “Really? That’s fascinating. And here I was under the impression that the corridor was under Guild embargo.”

Albert flushed. “Well, yes, technically, but… you know how things move if you grease the right palms.”

Paul’s eyes glittered. “Oh, I do.”

Gurney felt something cold and smug settle in his chest. Paul knew. Of course he knew. The boy was fishing, not being fished. His soft smiles, his bare skin, the faint brush of his arm against Albert’s—it was all a trap. And poor idiot Albert had just trotted into it, pearls clutched and secrets spilling.

Still, Gurney didn’t like it.

He leaned down, brushing his lips against Paul’s cheek in a kiss that felt more like a warning than affection. “Sadly, I need to leave,” he murmured. “Business.”

Paul turned to face him, slow and smooth. “Business?” he repeated, eyes narrowed. “Of course. You and Albert have so much in common.”

“Oh, I do hope not,” Gurney said, offering Albert a look that could sour wine.

Albert cleared his throat awkwardly. “Did something urgent come up?”

“Nothing worth ruining your evening over,” Gurney replied.

“I could help,” Paul said innocently, but there was fire under the words.

Gurney hesitated. “No, I—”

Paul cut him off with a smile sharp as glass. “Dear Albert and Linda will surely excuse me. Won’t you?”

Linda raised her glass in a mock-toast. “Naturally. I’m sure we’ll have other chances to… exchange insights.”

Paul turned back to them, graceful and final. “It was such a pleasure,” he said, and Gurney could almost hear the subtext: And such a waste of your time.

He walked ahead, shoulders squared, back gleaming beneath the sheer fabric. Gurney followed a half-step behind, his body humming from the contact, the smell, the nearness. Paul had always been beautiful. But tonight he was something more—untouchable, electric.

Once they were far enough from the crowd, Paul leaned in, lips brushing close to Gurney’s ear.

“Don’t think you’ll get rid of me that easily,” he murmured. A shiver went down Gurney’s spine. 

"Oh, and you’re welcome," Paul remarked, his expression now more disarming than devious.

“For what?” Gurney asked, though he already knew.

“I just saved you a future headache,” Paul said sweetly. “Albert’s planning to bypass your tariffs. I let him think I was too pretty to notice.”

“You’re infuriating,” Gurney muttered.

“But effective,” Paul added with a wicked little grin.

Gurney didn’t deny it—because Paul was right, damn him, and he didn’t have the strength tonight to pretend otherwise.

They stepped out into the velvet night air, the noise of the party dimming behind them like a fading lie, and Gurney gave a sharp nod to Lanville, who peeled off to summon the groundcar. The wind had picked up again, tugging at the hems of Paul’s ridiculous crop-top, and the sight of that bare midriff glinting under the streetlamps did nothing to ease the slow burn behind Gurney’s ribs.

“You should go back to the hotel,” he said finally, voice tight with everything he didn’t want to say—not here, not now, not with Paul still simmering from earlier. “This meeting—it’s not some gala or diplomatic theater. These are men who kill for leverage, Paul. Dangerous men who would murder you for no better reason than to watch me break.”

He hadn’t meant it to sound so grim. He saw it land, anyway.

Paul laughed, sharp and dismissive. “More dangerous than Emperor Feyd the First? Than the Sardaukar?” He turned toward Gurney, eyes catching the light like silver coins, his voice laced with that cutting edge of wounded pride. “You’re smarter than that. Don’t insult me.”

Gurney winced inwardly, though he didn’t show it. 

“I’m trying to protect you,” he muttered, jaw clenched as he reached for the car door and opened it for Paul with a stiffness that felt almost formal, like he didn’t quite trust himself to be gentle.

They slid inside together, side by side on the leather seat, the scent of Paul’s skin still tinged faintly with expensive cologne, the press of his thigh infuriatingly close and yet distant. The silence between them was thick—not the easy quiet of shared understanding, but something jagged, unspoken, impossible to name.

“You’re not going to stop me,” Paul said softly, but there was steel beneath the silk, a finality that brooked no discussion. “You’ve already tried that once.”

And as Gurney looked at him—really looked—he saw that bright, boyish smile beginning to bloom across Paul’s face, that smile he rarely shared, that made him look so young, so alive, so devastatingly beautiful that it made Gurney’s chest hurt. He turned his eyes away, jaw tight, cursing himself silently for what he was about to let happen.

***

They raced through the night-bound arteries of Kaitain’s capital, the city blurring past in streaks of gold and violet, the high-rises glittering like distant constellations, and Paul, despite everything, found himself momentarily lost in the spectacle. The windows of the groundcar flickered with reflections of movement and light—arches of neon, the pulse of traffic, and brief, ghostly glimpses of pedestrians slipping along the edge of visibility. It felt surreal, almost hypnotic, as though they weren’t moving through a city at all but through a living circuit of thought and memory.

“Where are we going?” Paul asked, finally dragging his gaze away from the blurred lights of Kaitan’s outer districts, the glittering sprawl of towers and pleasure domes giving way to empty thoroughfares and sterile steel compounds.

Gurney sat beside him, arms folded tight across his chest, his expression set in granite. The glow of passing security beacons painted hard lines across his face—deepening the scar that ran from brow to jaw like a reminder of some old cruelty neither of them ever spoke of. Tonight, he looked carved out of something older than stone.

Gurney didn’t look at him when he spoke. “Got a message from Surovy.”

Paul frowned. The name wasn’t familiar. Not in a way that gave him comfort. “Who?”

“House Surovy. Private vintners—small, brutal, and connected. He’s the only one on Chusuk who’s managed a CHOAM partnership in the last cycle. Wants to discuss ‘the incident.’” Gurney’s voice dipped on the last two words, half-sarcasm, half-grimness.

Paul felt a chill coil around his ribs. He knew what ‘incident’ meant. The sabotage, the poisoning of the wine barrels in the shipping depot. It had looked like sabotage—and smelled like a message.

“Surovy wants to meet? Personally?” Paul asked, his mouth suddenly dry.

Gurney gave a slow nod. “Said he wouldn’t speak to anyone else. Wants it off-record. Quiet. Immediate.”

Paul swallowed. “Gurney, he’ll kill you.”

A short laugh—low, almost amused—slipped from Gurney’s throat, but it held no humor. “Let him try.”

The sound of it sent a tremor down Paul’s spine. The idea of Gurney walking into some blood-drenched negotiation, with no guarantee of walking out, twisted in Paul’s chest like a blade.

“That’s not funny,” he muttered, too fast, too sharp. “You think this is a game?”

“No,” Gurney said. “I think it’s a risk. One I’m willing to take.”

“Do you at least have a weapon?”

Gurney shook his head with that same maddening calm. “Nothing of the sort, bless you. Weapons mean you expect violence. That’s how violence happens.”

Paul turned to the front seat. “Lanville?”

The bald-headed security chief glanced at him in the mirror and nodded. “Armed, my lord.”

“It’s not enough,” Paul whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

His hand reached out—without permission, it felt like—and found Gurney’s, resting on his thigh. The knuckles were rough, the skin warm. Paul traced them gently, slid his fingers up the man’s forearm, over sinew and old scars and sun-faded hairs that reminded him of home, and of things that used to feel safe.

“Are you sure we need to do this?” he asked softly.

Gurney didn’t answer right away. His jaw twitched. His eyes stayed on the road, on the growing shadows, on the lie Paul still didn’t see coming.

“There’s no ‘we,’ Paul,” he said at last, the words delivered gently, but final.

Paul looked at him for a long moment. “Don’t say that. Not after you already agreed I was coming.”

A pause.

“You’re still angry,” Gurney said quietly.

Paul huffed out a breath. “Are we back to that? Making decisions for me like I don’t understand the stakes?”

Gurney didn’t respond. Not with words. Just a sigh—his third since they’d left the gala—and it landed heavy, like a worn-out apology.

“You’re impossible,” he murmured, half to himself.

Paul leaned back in the seat, letting the silence press between them. The air inside the groundcar felt too warm. The lights outside were thinning. Industrial fencing lined the road now, tall black silhouettes like teeth against the sky.

Paul’s stomach tightened. He hated this. Not the danger, not really. He hated the not knowing . The slow drip of information, always filtered through someone else’s idea of what was best for him. It had been like this since the wedding where he’d been made a prize and a pawn and a husband all in the same breath.

“I’m not yours to protect,” he said quietly, eyes still fixed on the window. “You don’t get to decide what’s too dangerous for me.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“You’re trying to keep control,” Paul muttered.

Another silence. Longer this time.

The city had vanished now, swallowed by the night and the sprawl of the spaceport’s perimeter. Tall towers blinked in the distance, docking arms like skeletal fingers stretching toward the stars. The road curved, angling toward a private access gate.

Paul’s brows pulled together. “We’re heading to the spaceport?”

“Surovy’s ship is in orbit,” Gurney said smoothly, almost too smoothly. “Meeting’s happening up there. He’s paranoid—won’t set foot planetside.”

Paul hesitated. Something about that felt…off. But the quiet conviction in Gurney’s voice pulled him back.

“You trust him?” Paul asked, his voice quieter now, not sharp with sarcasm, but laced with something heavier—doubt, worry, something that twisted low in his gut and refused to be named.

“I trust that he wants what I have more than he wants to kill me,” Gurney replied evenly, still not looking at him. “That’s leverage enough.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Paul pressed, turning to watch him more fully. Gurney’s silhouette was rigid beside him, framed by the shadows and the flickering security lights outside the groundcar windows. 

At last, Gurney turned, and their eyes met. His expression was tired—no, exhausted—but steady. Unflinching. “And that’s precisely why I want you to stay away—because if something happened to you, I don’t know if I’d survive it.

Paul’s breath caught. The words were calm, even gentle, but they felt like a door shutting. He stared at Gurney, torn between anger and ache. He wanted to reach for him again, to shatter whatever distance was being carved between them by unspoken things. He wanted to kiss him. Or slap him. Or whisper something so venomous it would leave a scar.

Instead, he nodded. A single, sharp tilt of his chin.

Then—impulsively, defiantly—he leaned in and kissed him.

It was light at first. Just a brush of mouths, the kind of kiss meant to tease. But something in the moment cracked. The warmth of Gurney’s lips, the quiet shock that passed through him like a current—Paul felt it pull him deeper, as if his body had decided long before his mind had caught up. His chest ached, not with desire alone but with something softer, more dangerous.

Gurney blinked, visibly startled. “Since when do we…” he began, but Paul interrupted him with a lazy smile, drawing a finger slowly along the older man’s jaw, rough with stubble.

“What?” he purred. “Do what husbands are supposed to do?”

Color bloomed up Gurney’s neck, staining the weathered skin beneath his collar. Paul felt drunk on it—on the effect he had, on Gurney’s startled breath, the way his hands fidgeted, unsure where to rest. For once, Paul had the upper hand, and it thrilled him in a dark, quiet way.

“I wonder why you didn’t say that back in the palace,” he added, tilting his head, voice silkier now.

Gurney’s eyes fell. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “That was… an impulse. I shouldn’t have acted on it.”

“I’m glad you did,” Paul whispered.

Before Gurney could speak again, Paul leaned in and kissed him a second time—this one longer, slower, deliberate. Lips parted, and breath mingled. Gurney didn’t resist. His mouth was warm, uncertain, but eager beneath Paul’s. Paul felt the tension between them snap taut, filled with all the things neither of them had been able—or willing—to say.

When he finally pulled back, he lingered close, letting their lips still brush faintly with each breath. His voice dropped to a sultry murmur. “See? Was that so wrong?”

“Paul…” Gurney breathed, glancing toward the front of the car, where Lanville sat like a silent wall of discretion. “Lanville—”

“I’m sure he’s seen worse,” Paul murmured against Gurney’s cheek. “But fine. As you wish.”

He sat back with a smirk, brushing imaginary dust from Gurney’s lapel, as if to tease him further. “There’s definitely a lot to discuss,” he added, more softly now, a thread of seriousness tugging at the edges of the smile.

And then the car slowed, gliding to a gentle halt as its lights illuminated a stark, angular structure of pale metal and glass.

Lanville stepped out without a word and opened the door.

Paul emerged into the cool white glow of the spaceport. The high walls curved overhead like the ribs of a buried leviathan, glinting faintly under the industrial lights. Beyond the sealed windows, stars blinked over the skyline.

“We’re going up?” Paul asked, glancing around. “To his ship?”

“To the docking ring,” Gurney answered, stepping up beside him and unfastening his jacket. “Not to his ship. That was my condition.”

He handed the jacket to Paul, who took it without comment, shrugging it on. It was still warm from Gurney’s body, and it swallowed him in rough wool and the scent of spice and leather. He closed it around himself reflexively.

“Smart,” Paul murmured, still eyeing him sideways. A small part of him—very small—was still suspicious. But another part, the part pressed against the lining of Gurney’s jacket, wanted so badly to trust.

And despite everything, despite all the arguments and the bruised pride, he wasn’t afraid. Not really. Not while Gurney was beside him.

The comm in Gurney’s ear let out a soft chime. He tapped it, listening silently for a beat before nodding.

“Our shuttle’s ready,” he said.

They walked in silence beneath the cold, artificial lights of the docking platform, the sound of their boots echoing softly against polished stone and metal. The air smelled faintly of coolant and ozone, sterile and sharp, and Paul found himself breathing through his mouth as they passed the final checkpoint and approached the small shuttle that waited for them, squat and gleaming like a dormant insect ready to unfold. Lanville followed close behind, his footsteps steady, his eyes flicking to every corner, every shadow, every possible threat, while Paul merely kept pace beside Gurney, trusting in his presence, in the tension humming beneath his skin, in the way their shoulders occasionally brushed and stayed just a moment too long before parting.

They boarded quickly—the shuttle’s hatch sliding open with a hiss—and stepped into the dimly lit interior, which was stripped of all comfort or pretense, just bare rows of seats, harsh lights, and the low thrum of readiness. The silence inside struck Paul immediately, not just the physical absence of other passengers, but a strange hollowness, as though the air itself had been waiting for something to break.

Paul dropped into the seat near the window with a theatrical sigh, letting his head fall back, one leg crossing over the other, a curl of dark hair falling into his eyes as he looked lazily toward the front. Gurney and Lanville moved efficiently through the space, checking panels and corners, exchanging a few low murmurs too quiet for Paul to catch. He watched them idly at first, his fingers playing with the hem of Gurney’s borrowed jacket, still warm from his body, until he caught the expression on Gurney’s face—when he thought Paul wasn’t looking.

A tightness around the mouth. A heaviness in the eyes. Something—something quiet and dangerous and terribly sad.

“What is it?” Paul asked, his voice soft but direct, and before he could stop himself, his hands reached out—fingers brushing Gurney’s sleeve, then curling around his wrist, pulling him closer.

Gurney turned toward him slowly, as if something inside him resisted the motion. And then, all at once, he was embracing Paul, strong arms wrapping around him so tightly it knocked the breath from his lungs, his body crushing Paul’s against his chest in a way that was less about comfort and more about need—desperate, clinging, final.

“Gurney?” Paul said, stunned, voice muffled against his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Gurney didn’t answer at first. He pulled back slightly, cupped Paul’s face in both hands, and Paul could feel the roughness of his palms, the callused pads of his thumbs drawing slow, reverent circles over his cheekbones. His eyes—those eyes Paul had grown to trust, to seek out across crowded rooms—held something else now. Not desire. Not anger. Not even fear.

“I’m so sorry, Paul,” he murmured, and those words landed in Paul’s chest like falling knives.

“You...what?” Paul blinked, his brows drawing together. “For wha—?”

But then something pricked the side of his neck—so small, so precise, he barely felt it—and suddenly the world tilted. It started as a flicker at the edges of his vision, a strange shimmering dark, and then it came fast—his limbs heavy, his tongue thick, his thoughts sliding like water between his fingers.

“You…” he slurred, lips barely working. “You’re fuckin’...bastard…”

His body collapsed into Gurney’s arms before he could form another word, before he could even summon the strength to feel betrayed. The last thing he saw was Gurney’s face, twisted with something like grief—and then darkness, velvet and absolute, swallowed everything.

***

The house on Chusuk greeted him with its usual stillness—the scent of jasmine and polished wood in the air, the whisper of the wind through the grapevines, the soft trickle of the courtyard fountain. All of it untouched, perfect, and utterly unbearable. Paul’s boots struck the floor like hammers as he stormed through the hall, every carved arch and velvet drape scraping at his nerves. Once, this house had felt like a thing that used to amaze. Now it was just another place Gurney had tricked him into calling home.

Horse ago, he woke up in the shuttle hours ago, heart hammering against his ribs like it meant to break free from his chest. The return of consciousness had come slowly—first the sense of weightlessness, then the cold press of leather beneath his palms, and finally the blinding surge of rage that flared the instant his mind caught up with what had been done to him. His limbs felt sluggish, uncooperative. His head spun. But even through the haze, fury found him easily, sharp and clean.

It had been Lanville, of course—always dutiful, always quiet, Gurney’s shadow in all things—who stood waiting for him as his eyelids fluttered open. Unreadable, hands calmly folded behind his back as though none of this warranted alarm.

Poor Lanville. If Paul had been able to close his fingers around his knife half a second faster—if the dizzying effects of the sedative hadn’t still been crawling down his spine—he might have drawn real blood.

“What the fuck did you inject into me?” he’d hissed, his voice rough from sleep, and with a shaking hand, he’d pressed the tip of his pocket knife against the man’s throat—flush, not piercing, but trembling with restrained violence. It wasn’t fear that made him shake. It was rage. Pure, seething betrayal that threatened to boil over.

Lanville hadn’t even flinched. Not a twitch of his eyelid, not the faintest crack in his unbothered tone. “Just a sedative, my lord,” he had said, as if they were discussing the forecast. “Nothing dangerous. Mild, but effective.”

Paul’s vision blurred with the effort of holding his arm steady. His knuckles ached. The knife trembled harder in his grip.

“And if you don’t put that blade away,” Lanville continued with maddening calm, “I’ll do it again. You’ll be unconscious until we carry you into the house, and I assure you, nothing will change, except you’ll wake up with a sore neck and bruised pride.”

Paul had twisted, half rising from his seat, eyes narrowing—and that’s when he saw it: Lanville’s hand, lowered at his side but pointed straight at him, holding a sleek silver injector. The bastard had been ready. One twitch of the thumb and Paul would be out again before he could even blink.

A hot, frustrated snarl tore from his throat as he jerked back and shoved the knife away, his free hand clenching into a fist that he wanted—needed—to bury into something. Preferably Gurney’s face.

“You’ll pay for this,” he spat, voice raw, chest heaving. “You and your beloved master.” He held out his hand. “Give me the comm. Now.”

But Lanville only gave a slow, deliberate shake of the head. “There’s no coverage this far from orbit. You’ll have access again once we’re at the estate. Then you may call Lord Halleck and say whatever you like.”

“I don’t need your fucking opinion on what I can or can’t do,” Paul snapped, the words cracking out of him like a whip, and for a moment, he imagined lunging across the narrow shuttle aisle and wringing the serenity right off the man’s face.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t. The sedative still numbed the edges of his reaction time, and his anger, though volcanic, was no use in a confined metal box with nowhere to go.

So the rest of the ride passed in silence. A silence so thick it rang in his ears.

Paul had sat there like a bird with clipped wings, his body still stiff from the drugs, his mind racing too fast to make sense of anything but rage. Gurney had done this to him. Gurney had planned it. Had held him close, kissed him like a lover, whispered soft apologies—and all the while, he had already arranged for Paul to be knocked out and dragged back like a disobedient child or, worse, a piece of precious cargo.

Betrayed. Controlled. Humiliated .

He had never felt so small, so stripped of dignity. Not even at the hideous wedding. Not even during the worst of the marriage night. Because this— this —had come from the one person who was supposed to see him, who was supposed to understand.

And that made it unforgivable .

And now, hours later, with the sky outside their house deepening into velvet blue, he found himself pacing the length of his bedroom like a caged animal, still wearing the same clothes from the night before, his hands trembling at his sides, unable to eat, unable to shower, unable to stop his thoughts from circling that one unbearable truth—Gurney had drugged him. Lied to him. Used him . He had kissed Paul like he meant it. Held him like he was precious. Promised to let him stand beside him—and then stripped that choice away like it was never his to begin with.

The comm on the desk began to beep, sharp and persistent, slicing through the stillness like a thorn. Paul didn’t move. He stood by the window, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the distant trees swaying outside. It beeped again. Louder, it seemed. More insistent. As if it knew he was listening.

With a sudden growl of frustration, he crossed the room in three strides and snatched the device up, tapping it with his thumb.

“What?” he snarled, not even trying to hide the venom in his voice.

There was a brief pause, and then—that voice, low and rough and far too familiar:

“Paul—”

The name was spoken like a prayer, but it hit Paul like a slap.

“Oh, you’ve got some fucking nerve,” he hissed, the rage coiling tight in his chest, choking the air from his lungs. “Why the hell are you calling me, Halleck? Do you really think I want to hear your voice right now? After what you did?”

“I needed to—”

“No,” Paul cut him off, his voice rising, wild and shaking. “You needed to drug me, is that it? That’s your justification now? That’s your love language? Compliments, kisses, and a needle in the neck?”

There was a crackle of silence on the other end, and Paul seized the moment, pushing forward, raw and relentless.

“Was that your plan all along?” he spat. “Ease me into it, little by little—flatter me, wine me, fuck me if I let you, and then when I’m finally starting to believe you care—knock me out like a misbehaving servant and ship me off home like I’m some inconvenient package that got delivered to the wrong house?”

“Paul, please,” Gurney said, his voice quiet, strained. “It wasn’t like that—”

“Don’t you dare lie to me now.” Paul’s tone turned deadly cold, his fury narrowing into something sharp and lethal. “You wanted control, didn’t you? You wanted me under your roof, under your name, under your fucking thumb. What’s next? A leash around my neck?”

“I was trying to protect you—”

“From what?!” Paul’s voice cracked as it surged higher, anguish bleeding through the anger. “From being treated like a man instead of a pawn? You don’t get to decide what I can handle. You don’t get to sedate me when the situation’s too messy for your comfort. I’m not your damn livestock, Gurney. I’m a fucking Atreides, and I demand the respect that name carries. Or is that too highbrow for a merchant to understand?”

There was a long, pulsing silence. Paul could hear his own breath—fast, erratic, clawing at the back of his throat.

When Gurney finally spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I’m sorry, Paul. But it had to be done. You were walking into danger you didn’t understand. I couldn’t let them touch you.”

Paul’s jaw locked, a tremor running down his spine. That tone—quiet, steady, tinged with guilt but still so sure—that was what shattered him.

“You still don’t get it,” he said at last, and this time his voice was low, almost numb. “You don’t get that what you did is the danger.”

“Paul—”

“No.” Paul closed his eyes. “You’ve made your choice, Halleck. Now live with it. You will never see me again.”

“Please don’t—”

But Paul had already cut the connection, the silence that followed as absolute as the one in his chest.

The comm beeped again. And again. And Paul, teeth bared in a silent snarl, threw it across the room, watching with satisfaction as it shattered against the windowpane.

“Servants!” he called, his voice echoing.

A moment later, someone answered at the door.

“Pack my things,” he said. “All of them. I’m leaving.”

He made a show of it—no, more than that, a production, a full-blown performance with servants flying left and right, questions barked and ignored, orders hurled like blades into the quiet orderliness of the house, as if noise and chaos could smother the fury bubbling up inside him. He wanted it loud. He wanted it theatrical. If he couldn’t have peace, he’d have spectacle.

"Summon them all," he had commanded—valets, stewards, even the sleepy, confused chef, dragged from bed and blinking at him in his nightshirt. “Wake everyone. Now.”

He prowled the hall like a storm gathering strength, voice clipped and cold. “Find me a Highliner. The fastest one. No delays, no questions. I’m leaving for Caladan. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care how much it costs. Do it.”

Lanville had, of course, tried to inject reason into the chaos.

“What, tonight?” he asked, brows drawn tight in that infuriatingly calm way of his. “But my lord, the Chusuk registry won’t—”

“Am I the master of this house, Lanville?” Paul interrupted, deadly quiet.

“You are, my lord,” Lanville said without hesitation, but his eyes had dropped an instant too late.

“Then find me the Highliner and the ship.”

And Lanville had gone, as Paul knew he would, because servants obeyed, even when their instincts told them their master was unraveling by the second. And later—after an hour of back-and-forth, of intercepted flight paths and revised schedules—he returned, announcing they’d found a Highliner that could take him out in the early hours of the morning, and that the family ship would be ready and waiting in low orbit by dawn.

Paul had smiled, sharp and satisfied, a smile meant to cut.

“Don’t you want to inform Lord Halleck?” Lanville had asked after a beat, too casual, the question coiled like a snake. “That you’re leaving tomorrow morning?”

Paul had smirked without looking at him.

“Let’s pretend you don’t report my every step to him already,” he said, tone mild, almost affectionate.

Lanville had lowered his eyes then, and said nothing. He didn’t have to. Paul already knew how this would play out. Gurney would receive the message—maybe not from Lanville directly, but through one of the other channels he’d always kept open, like a man who expected betrayal from everyone but insisted on pretending it didn’t hurt. Gurney was likely already flying from Kaitain back to Chusuk, ready to storm through their house and talk sense, or yell, or beg.

But by the time Gurney arrived, Paul would be gone. Not to Caladan—that part had only been the bait. Let him follow and chase ghosts. Let him believe for a moment that Paul was returning to his home planet.

It was well past midnight when he wandered through the sleeping house, its darkened rooms lit only by shafts of moonlight pouring through high windows, silvering the furniture, the walls, the floor tiles. He moved like a phantome—no longer raging, no longer speaking. Silent. Still burning, but quiet now, cold at the edges, as though something vital inside him had been carved away and left somewhere along the road from the shuttle to the estate.

He passed the great hall with its arched ceiling, the atrium where he and Gurney had once drunk wine and talked about sheep. He paused in the gallery where portraits hung—long-dead Hallecks staring down at him with judgment in their eyes—and he looked back at them without fear, without reverence, without anything at all.

There was beauty here. Unrivaled beauty. The clean, orderly kind that had seduced him before he even realized how hollow it could be.

But he wouldn’t miss it.

He wouldn’t miss the soft sheets, the late-night dinners, the predictable rhythm of country days. He wouldn’t miss being adored by a man who thought loving him meant locking him away from danger, sedating him like a child.

No.

He wouldn’t miss anything .

The three moons of Chusuk hung high in the sky, double-eyed and cold, as he left the house without fanfare, a single backpack slung over his shoulders, the kind of pack a boy might take on a dare or a runaway stunt—except this wasn’t a stunt. This was an escape.

The stables were dark and still, thick with the warm scent of hay and animal musk. The horses stirred at the sound of his boots, their ears twitching, nostrils flaring. He flicked on his flashlight, its beam cutting through the shadow, and found Duncan almost instantly—his stallion. His only real ally.

“Hi there, handsome,” Paul murmured, running his fingers through Duncan’s thick mane, the warmth of the animal grounding him in a way nothing else could. “We’re about to have a long journey.”

He had no idea where the path would take him, and truly, he didn’t care—only that it would carry him far from here, far from the house with its aching memories, from the lies and expectations, from the tangle of power and pretense that had bound itself like chains around his throat. 

All that mattered was the distance—distance from Gurney Halleck and the quiet betrayal in his touch, from the farce of a marriage sealed with politics and poisoned wine, from the ever-watchful eye of the Imperium that pressed down on him like a boot on the neck. 

He was tired—so unspeakably, bone-deep tired—of the burdens they kept piling on his shoulders: the name that no longer felt like his, the legacy he hadn’t asked to inherit, the alliance forged not in trust but in survival. He was done pretending he could carry it all. Done pretending he wanted to.

The pasture opened before him like a sea of dark silk, the air sharp and fresh, filled with the sweet, earthy perfume of meadow grass crushed under hoof and wind. Lightning cracked in the distance, flickering like a flash behind the clouds, and the soft rumble of thunder came seconds later—gentle, like a promise.

The wilderness would hide him.

While his oh-so-loving husband was flying to Caladan, tearing through cities and palaces looking for a spouse in exile, Paul would be right here—hidden in th e folds of his own damn planet, among commoners and workers and rusted fences and dust, sleeping on soil instead of sheets, eating what he could barter for, speaking only when spoken to. Let them search the stars. Let them send emissaries and tear through archives. Let them worry.

He pulled out his compass, its scratched brass surface glinting in the moonlight, and found his heading, turning Duncan’s reins toward the horizon where the lightning danced.

“Let’s go,” he whispered.

And the stallion moved.

***

The moment Gurney stepped off the shuttle and into the Chusuk morning, he knew something was wrong.

The air was too still, the landing crew too quiet, avoiding his gaze with stiff backs and lowered heads. The scent of rain still lingered from the storm the night before—rich soil, damp stone, and the faint sweetness of crushed grass—and the wind that greeted him was not the breeze of homecoming but of aftermath.

He didn’t waste time asking questions. He simply barked for a groundcar, swung into the front seat beside the driver, and ordered them to take him straight to the estate. Every mile that passed twisted something deeper in his chest, winding him tighter. The road curved through green hills, and the trees were beginning to bloom along the edges, but Gurney saw none of it.

He was too busy trying not to imagine Paul already gone.

When the car pulled up to the house, Lanville was waiting at the door. Arms crossed. Face unreadable.

Gurney didn’t greet him. He just said, low and fast, “Where is he?”

Lanville hesitated only a moment too long.

“He left early this morning, my lord. A few hours before dawn.”

“Caladan?” Gurney asked, already moving past him into the house.

Lanville followed. “He told us to prepare for Caladan. The ship left as scheduled.”

“But?” Gurney snapped.

“But I don’t believe he was on it,” Lanville said evenly. “The guards at the landing pad said he never boarded. They saw him ride off into the night. Took his horse, Duncan. Had a pack. That’s all.”

Gurney stopped walking.

His mind painted the image unbidden: Paul riding into darkness, his jaw set, his mouth a thin determined line. Proud. Furious. Disappearing .

A familiar kind of fear pressed into Gurney’s chest—not the fear of loss. It was something more bitter, more intimate: the fear of having misjudged som eone he loved. Of having handled them too roughly, or not roughly enough.

He rubbed his hand down his face, feeling the day’s stubble under his palm, the burn of sleeplessness in his eyes.

“I thought it would buy me time,” he said quietly, mostly to himself. “Just time to fix things, to make it safe—”

“You broke his trust, my lord,” Lanville said. Not disapprovingly, but just as a fact.

Gurney closed his eyes. “Do we know where he went?”

“No. But he took a compass. Riding gear. No comm.” A pause. “He doesn’t want to be found.”

That, of course, didn’t matter.

“I’ll find him,” Gurney said, voice quiet and final.

Lanville nodded.

“Prepare a search team,” Gurney added, his tone all in command now. “No noise, keep it internal. I don’t want word gettin g out that the Lord of Chusuk has lost his husband in the fucking wilderness.”

“As you wish.”

But as Lanville turned to go, Gurney remained in the hallway, staring down the length of the corridor, where the door to Paul’s bedroom stood slightly ajar. The scent of him still lingered in the air—warm cedar and seawater, something wild and sharp and unmistakably Paul.

He thought of Paul’s eyes, wide with fury. His voice on the comm, raw and shaking: You will never see me again .

He had meant it. But Gurney would not let that be true.

Not now. Not after everything.

Not even if he had to turn the whole damned planet upside down to drag him back.

***

The storm had swallowed everything—sky, earth, sound. Rain lashed his face in stinging sheets, and the wind tore at his clothes like it meant to peel the skin from his bones. Paul had lost all sense of direction. The pasture had once stretched boundless and tranquil, rolling like an emerald sea beneath Duncan’s hooves—a realm of grass and whispering wind. Now it was a wasteland of shadow: the sky starless, the earth shapeless, the air a howling gale. Nothing but cold. Nothing but noise.

And then Duncan stumbled.

A jolt of motion, a sickening lurch of weight—and Paul was falling.

His shoulder hit the ground first, hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs, and then his ankle turned beneath him with a pop that sent a flare of agony streaking through his whole leg. He landed in the mud, gasping, crying out, fingers clawing at the soaked earth.

He couldn’t stand.

Pain pulsed from his ankle in savage, sickening waves, hot and sharp and then dull and unbearable. He tried—tried to rise, to shift his weight—but the moment he moved, his vision dimmed, and a scream tore from his throat before he could stop it. He fell again, flat on his back in the rain, his hair plastered to his face, water pouring into his mouth and eyes, and he thought, absurdly, This is how it ends.

Alone, freezing, half-trampled in a field like some wounded animal. All because he had been angry. So fucking angry .

He drew his knees in and hugged himself, panting, shaking. The storm roared overhead. Lightning split the sky again and again, casting brief, blinding light across the hills, and each time it did, he flinched, waiting for the next boom, the next thunderclap to break him in two.

And yet—somewhere in that howl of chaos—he thought he heard something different.

A mechanical whine. Not the storm. Not the wind. Something else.

He turned his head.

Above the ridge, silhouetted by the next bolt of lightning, the dark, angular shape of a ’thopter cut through the sky. Its searchlights flicked down, sweeping the field like fingers, cutting brilliant cones through the rain. It circled once, then descended—lower, closer—bucking against the wind like a bird fighting for its life.

Paul tried to wave. He screamed, though the wind tore the sound from his throat before it could reach his ears. He shoved himself upright with trembling arms, crawling backward through the mud, ankle screaming in protest. The lights found him. Stopped on him.

And then the ’thopter landed.

He barely registered the figure that burst from the side hatch, sprinting across the field—long coat flaring behind him, boots slamming into puddles. He couldn’t believe it at first, couldn’t trust his eyes, but then he heard the voice.

“Paul!”

Gurney .

He collapsed backward, a sob ripping from his chest that sounded more like a laugh. “Took you long enough,” he croaked, though he wasn’t sure if it even came out loud.

And then Gurney was there.

Mud splattered up to his thighs, his face soaked and wild with worry, one hand reaching out and the other steadying Paul’s shoulder. “You’re hurt,” he said, and Paul hated how relieved he sounded, like something in him had unclenched just at the sight.

“No shit,” Paul rasped, his hand fisting in Gurney’s coat.

“I’ve got you,” Gurney said, voice low, steady despite the chaos around them. His hands moved with care, slipping under Paul’s knees, bracing his back. Paul cried out as his ankle was jostled, but Gurney didn’t stop, didn’t falter, even as the wind howled and lightning ripped open the sky again. He just held on.

“Put me down or I’ll kill you,” Paul muttered weakly, clutching at Gurney’s collar as his feet left the ground. His head fell against the broad, damp chest, the heat of Gurney’s body seeping into his frozen skin.

“You can kill me when we get home,” Gurney said, almost gently.

The ride back to the ’thopter felt like forever and no time at all. The door slammed shut behind them, muting the storm to a distant growl, and Gurney lowered Paul onto a padded seat, kneeling beside him, fingers skimming across his soaked clothes, his battered ankle, his bruised ribs.

“What in God’s name did you think you’d find out here?” Gurney asked, eyes fierce and searching. 

Paul let out a bitter laugh. “Peace. Or a good enough excuse not to go back.”

Gurney didn’t answer. He peeled off his coat and wrapped it around Paul’s shoulders, his hands trembling as he tucked it close beneath Paul’s chin. “You’re burning up,” he muttered.

“I’m cold.”

“I know.”

Their eyes met—wet lashes, rain-slicked skin, shared breath misting in the cabin’s dim light—and for a long, fragile second, nothing passed between them except the steady hum of the engine and the unspoken fact that Paul could have died out there.

He leaned forward, forehead resting against Paul’s, and whispered, “Don’t ever run like that again.”

Paul didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just closed his eyes, clung to the warmth, and let the storm rage outside.

***

The room was dim and warm, the scent of woodsmoke and drying herbs lingering in the air, and though Paul knew it well—knew the way the firelight touched the polished wooden floor, the carved bedposts, the drapes that stirred slightly in the breeze from the half-open window—everything about it now felt alien, like he’d wandered into someone else’s life and sat down in the wrong skin. He was back in Gurney’s house. In Gurney’s bedroom. Swaddled in thick blankets and propped up by pillows that smelled faintly of myrrh and the musky, leather-sweet scent of Gurney’s clothes. His ankle no longer throbbed—it was healed, thanks to the swift work of a Suk-medic who had arrived before Paul had fully regained consciousness after the flight—but his head still ached, and his body felt slow and heavy, like it didn’t quite belong to him.

The fire snapped softly. Somewhere down the hall, he could hear servants moving—quiet footsteps, the occasional clink of porcelain, the hush of low voices trying not to carry. Paul lay still, staring at the ceiling beams, counting the shadows that stretched across them. He didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to feel anything at all. And yet everything inside him was awake and clawing—the regret and the rage, the embarrassment, the ache of betrayal that still curled in his chest, poisonous and slow-burning.

The door creaked open.

He didn’t have to look. The sound of Gurney’s boots on the floor—softened only slightly by the rug—was as familiar to Paul as his own heartbeat.

“Are you awake?” Gurney asked quietly.

Paul didn’t answer.

Gurney stepped further in, and Paul heard the clink of ceramic against wood as he set something down on the bedside table. “I brought you spiced wine,” he said after a moment, voice gentle, careful. “Thought it might help.”

Paul turned his head slowly, letting his eyes settle on the mug without touching it. “Why are you still pretending you care?”

Gurney exhaled, long and quiet, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Because I do.”

“That’s not what it felt like,” Paul said, voice sharper now, jagged and cold like broken ice. “When you drugged me. When you lied to my face, again and again—that didn’t feel like care. That felt like control.”

“I was trying to protect you—”

Paul let out a brittle laugh. “You always say that—as if ‘protection’ means stripping me of agency. As if lo…” He cut himself off, jaw tightening, then pressed on. “As if our marriage—or whatever it is you pretend this is—gives you the right to make decisions for me.”

Gurney stood up again, turning away. “You don’t know how dangerous these people are, Paul. I’ve lived in this filth longer than you’ve been alive.”

“And you think that makes you wiser?” Paul hissed. “You think because you’ve sold your soul enough times to survive, that gives you the moral high ground?”

Gurney turned, slowly, his face unreadable in the firelight. “I think it gives me the right to speak when the danger’s too high for a boy who was bred to rule but never to bleed.”

That cut deep.

Paul stiffened, his hands curling into the blankets. “Right,” he said, low and furious. “That’s what you see when you look at me. Some pampered little prince who’s never suffered. Never bled for anything real.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to,” Paul spat. “And since we’re being honest—since you’ve decided to lecture me like I’m one of your underpaid vineyard workers—I might as well say what I’ve been thinking.”

Gurney crossed his arms. “Go on, then.”

Paul sat up straighter, pain forgotten now, fire in his blood. “You don’t care about a single living thing on this estate. Not the staff. Not me. You care about the bottom line. You care about the balance sheets and your profit margins and your carefully crafted image of nobility. But you’re not noble, Gurney. You’re a merchant. A tradesman. You wrap yourself in songs and poetry and pretend you’ve got a heart—but all you see when you look at people is what they can give you.”

“You left Duncan out there,” Paul said, his voice low and trembling—not with fear, but with fury barely held in check. “In the middle of a storm that nearly killed me. You didn’t even flinch when I said it. Just brushed it off—‘He’ll find his way back,’ like he was some broken compass instead of a living creature. You said it like it didn’t matter.”

“Duncan will be fine,” Gurney said, but his voice was quieter now, less certain.

“You don’t get it,” Paul snarled. “You never get it. Because you don’t care about things unless they’re broken and yours. That’s the only way you know how to love—if you can own it.”

Gurney’s eyes narrowed. “You’re pushing it.”

Paul didn’t stop, he just couldn’t. “You want to know what I see when I look at you? I see a man who spent so many years licking Harkonnen boots in the slave pits, he doesn’t know what dignity looks like anymore. Who thinks loyalty is just another form of servitude, and he’s so damn used to being a pawn that he’s forgotten how to be a man.”

The silence that followed was instant—and electric.

Gurney’s expression froze. The lines around his mouth went tight. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low and steady, almost terrifying in its control.

“Don’t you dare talking about that.”

Paul tilted his chin. “Why not? It’s part of you, isn’t it? You never stop reminding people of what you survived. Maybe you like being pitied.”

Something in Gurney snapped.

He moved before Paul could even process it—fast and deliberate, the light catching on the hard gleam in his eyes, his voice breaking like thunder in the quiet room.

“If you think you can say something like that and walk away unscathed, you don’t understand me as well as you think you do,” he growled.

Paul’s breath hitched, but he held his ground, heart pounding.

Gurney was close now—too close—looming over the bed, hands braced on either side of Paul’s body, his presence like heat, like gravity, like something that bent the very air around it. Paul’s pulse thundered in his ears.

“You don’t get to weaponize the worst parts of me just because you’re angry,” Gurney said, voice low and shaking. “You don’t get to throw that back in my face and act like you’re the only one who’s ever been hurt.”

Paul stared at him, breathing fast, lips parted. “And what are you going to do?” he whispered, defiant even now. “Beat it out of me? Chain me to this bed like a good little pet?”

Gurney leaned closer, his voice a rasp. “No. But you’re not walking away from this without consequences.”

And Paul, burning from the inside out, whispered, “Then show me.”

The fire cracked.

The room stood still. And for one breathless, suspended moment, neither of them moved.

Then, Gurney’s hands closed around him—not tentative, but brutal in their certainty, seizing him with a force that didn’t ask for permission. Fingers dug into Paul’s hips, possessive and bruising, as if Gurney meant to etch himself into bone, to leave a mark that no words could undo.The silk of Paul’s shirt did nothing to soften the grip—it might as well have been air—because the heat of that touch burned through everything: through cloth, through pride, through the fragile shell Paul had tried to rebuild around himself.

There was no space left between them. Gurney pulled him forward in a rough jerk, dragging him from where he sat, the motion knocking a gasp from Paul’s chest as their bodies collided—chest to chest, the pressure between them growing molten as the hard line of Gurney’s cock pressed up beneath his own, straining against fabric in a way that was impossible to ignore.

Paul’s breath caught on the inhale, sharp and unguarded. His head fell back slightly as Gurney’s mouth found his throat—not in a kiss, but in a scrape of stubble and heat, teeth grazing the fluttering pulse just beneath the skin. The sensation sent a violent shudder rippling through him.

“You always talk,” Gurney rasped, voice hoarse with restraint, lips brushing the shell of Paul’s ear. “But you never fucking listen. So listen now.”

Paul lurched forward to twist his fingers in the collar of Gurney’s shirt, dragging him closer, their faces inches apart. “I don’t want to listen to you, you ugly bastard!” he snarled. “I don’t listen to a fucking slave!”

The word cracked through the room like a whip, and Paul didn’t stop to regret it. Instead, he leaned forward and spat directly into Gurney’s face.

Gurney didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. The spit slid slowly down the hard ridge of his cheek, catching in the stubble at his jaw, and he stared at Paul with a look so dark and unreadable it made the air thin in Paul’s lungs. He watched, transfixed, as Gurney lifted a hand and—calmly, mechanically—wiped the spit away with the back of it, his eyes never breaking from Paul’s.

The quiet was worse than violence.

Then—he moved.

Fast. Brutal. Inevitable.

Paul barely registered the motion before Gurney’s grip shifted and he was pulled forward and spun with such ruthless efficiency that the room seemed to tip around him. His body hit the mattress hard, face-first, knees digging into the sheets, hands splaying out to catch himself as he was shoved down with the full force of Gurney’s weight. The silk of his shirt tangled around his thighs, his bare skin brushing the cool linens, and the sudden change in position robbed him of breath and balance.

Gurney’s hand pressed between his shoulder blades, holding him there, pinning him down with a command that didn’t need words. He was solid and heavy behind Paul, heat rolling off him in waves, and Paul could feel every inch of it—the tremor in Gurney’s breath, the fury radiating through his touch, the undeniable hardness straining between them.

His pulse pounded against the mattress. Still panting, still flushed with defiance and confusion and something darker beneath, Paul shifted, trying to wrench away—but Gurney’s grip tightened.

He felt the bed dip as Gurney settled each knee on either side of him, bracketing his thighs and forcing them together, before his weight pressed down—solid and unyielding—with a hand splayed between Paul’s shoulder blades, holding him firmly with a dominance that sent a shudder rippling through his entire body.

"Be still," Gurney rasped, his voice thick with something that wasn’t just anger, the words muffled against the nape of Paul’s neck.

Paul bucked instinctively, his hips lifting, his body betraying him even as his pride raged. He could feel Gurney’s cock, hard and insistent against the curve of his ass, the heat of it searing even through fabric. "What the hell are you—"

The question died in his throat as Gurney’s hands slid down, rough palms mapping the dip of his spine, the swell of his ass, fingers digging in with a possessiveness that left no room for doubt. Then—fabric tore. A sharp yank, and Paul’s underwear was gone, the cool air hitting his exposed skin like a shock.

"Don’t you dare, you ugly fuck—" Paul twisted, his voice raw, but Gurney’s grip was iron, holding him in place as easily as if he were a child.

“The heir of the Great House Atreides,” Gurney mused, his voice a dark, mocking thing, the words dripping with something between reverence and scorn. "Sprawled out for a slave like a common whore."

Paul’s breath hitched, shame and fury warring in his chest—until Gurney’s cock, hot and slick with precome, pressed against him, nudging between his ass cheeks, the thick length of it gliding against the sensitive skin with a deliberate, taunting slowness.

“I’m not…” Paul rasped, so overwhelmed by the drag of slick, heated skin against his hole that he forgot all thoughts of resistance. He couldn’t believe Gurney would do this—take him like this, trapped and humiliated, without lube, without even the decency of preparation. After everything, their first time would be this: pain and degradation.

“You’re insane…” Paul breathed, too wrecked to struggle. Gurney’s weight pinned him harder to the bed, his beard scraping Paul’s cheekbone, his breath searing against sweat-damp skin. Soft lips brushed Paul’s ear:

“Because you drive me crazy, Paul Atreides.”

The weight of Gurney’s body pinned him down, the roll of his hips deliberate, relentless. Paul tensed, bracing for the sharp sting of penetration—but instead, the thick, burning heat of Gurney’s cock slid between his thighs, smearing precome across the sensitive skin. A ragged groan spilled from Gurney’s lips, hot against Paul’s ear, the sound filthy enough to make his own cock twitch in helpless response.

He was already hard, flushed and leaking against his stomach. Instinct made him close his thighs, and Gurney rewarded him with another broken moan, the vibration of it searing through Paul’s spine like a lick of gentle fire.

Gurney rocked forward again, the slick drag of his cock maddening, the heat of him unbearable. Paul’s own cock ached, trapped between his belly and the sheets, every drag of Gurney’s length against him eliciting shivers of heat in his lower stomach.

“Don’t open them,” Gurney warned, voice a growl against Paul’s jaw, the vibration of it thrumming through bone and sinew.

“I wasn’t going to,” Paul whispered, but the edge in his voice had softened, smoothed by heat and the ache of want, the words dissolving into a gasp as Gurney shifted, the head of his cock dragging against the sensitive skin between Paul’s legs, caught between thigh and thigh, slick with sweat and desperate tension.

The next thrust was unhurried, a deliberate claiming of space, the rough heat of Gurney’s cock sliding against him, the friction sending fire blooming low in Paul’s belly, his fingers curling into the sheets as he bit down on a moan. Gurney moved with precision—controlled but fierce, grinding between Paul’s thighs, using the strength of his body and the weight of his desire to drive every motion deeper, harder, until the bedframe creaked beneath them and the air was thick with the sound of ragged breaths and the slick, sinful slide of skin against skin.

His hands were everywhere—bracing Paul’s hips, smoothing down his sides, gripping his thighs with a bruising tenderness, his calloused palms leaving trails of fire in their wake. Every touch was a brand, every shift of his body a promise, and when his lips found the shell of Paul’s ear again, his voice was dark and possessive, rough with need.

“You’re mine,” Gurney hissed, the words a vow, a curse, a truth neither of them could deny any longer.

Paul should’ve denied it.

He didn’t.

Instead, he arched up against Gurney, nails digging deep into crumpled linen, and a broken whisper tore from his lips, muffled against the pillow: “Then prove it.”

And Gurney did.

With every thrust, every drag of his cock between Paul’s legs, every sigh and bite and broken moan that passed between them, he left his mark—not just on Paul’s skin, but deep inside the love-starved space where neither of them could ever say what they truly wanted. It wasn’t gentle. But it wasn’t cruel, either. It was real, so real it burned, the pleasure cresting like a wave, relentless and all-consuming, until Paul was trembling beneath him, his thighs slick with sweat, his body taut as a bowstring, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

And when Paul finally shuddered against Gurney, sweat-slicked and breathless, his release crashing over him like a storm, he didn’t know if what spilled from his lips was a curse or a prayer.

Only that it was Gurney’s name.

Chapter Text

Paul stirred to consciousness with the quiet creak of the bed. The light filtering through Gurney’s window was pale and golden, softened by the curtain’s edge, but even before his eyes had fully opened, he knew where he was. The scent of worn leather, faint sweat, and the distant trace of Gurney’s cologne lingered in the air—undeniable, familiar now. He lay on his side, tucked into a bed too big for one but not quite wide enough for comfort when two people occupied it with the kind of intensity they had last night.

He blinked slowly, staring at the knot in the wooden beam above as memories unfurled without warning, vivid and immediate. The sensation of Gurney’s weight bearing down on him returned with startling clarity—his solid body pressing Paul into the mattress, anchoring him, surrounding him. It hadn’t been gentle, not entirely. There had been a kind of urgency to it, a hunger that caught Paul off guard even as it thrilled him. He remembered the wet heat of Gurney’s cock moving between his thighs, dragging slick through the sensitive skin there, each thrust punctuated by breathless, muffled grunts. The memory of those slippery sounds—obscene and intimate—made him shift under the covers, as though the sheets had become too close, too aware of his skin.

Paul exhaled and rubbed his hands over his face, palms warm against his cheeks. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t planned any of it. Certainly not this. Certainly not with Gurney.

But then, it hadn’t really felt like planning, had it? It had crept in sideways, wrapped in a moment of closeness that tipped too far before either of them could brace against it. And now, lying here, Paul's body still hummed faintly with the echo of friction and fevered movement, as if the night had left its signature branded beneath his skin.

Gurney had held him like he didn’t dare let go. Not with restraint, but with reverence—like someone who didn’t quite believe this was real. And Paul hadn’t stopped him. No matter how hard he tried to tell himself he should’ve—could’ve—there had been a moment, stretched long and trembling, when he’d angled his hips just enough to give Gurney better access, when he'd shifted so that the slide between his thighs was deeper, more dangerous. His breath had hitched when Gurney whispered his name—hoarse, broken, so full of want it made something inside Paul twist tight.

He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, his mouth dry, his body heavy in a way that didn’t feel like sleep. It was the aftermath of being wanted. Touched. Taken—not in cruelty or conquest, but with the kind of aching tenderness that sneaks in through the cracks of denial.

The heat of memory still clung to his skin as he dressed, every movement bringing back a flicker of sensation—fingers ghosting along his hips, breath against his neck, the low, broken sounds he hadn’t meant to make. He needed air. Distance. Something simple and grounding. Without thinking, he turned toward the terrace where he liked to have his breakfast alone instead of a dining hall, hoping the morning breeze might clear his head. The hall, with its high, echoing ceilings and ever-watchful attendants, felt cold, ceremonial, and far too vast for something as simple as breakfast. The terrace, by contrast, offered a kind of gentleness he rarely allowed himself: the early sun warming the pale stone tiles, the wind threading through the trees in the orchard below, carrying with it the sweet scent of sun-warmed leaves. He liked to sit there alone, usually with a book resting in his lap, pages fluttering gently in the breeze, as he listened to the birdsong rising and falling like an unhurried conversation.

This morning, he craved that solitude more than usual. His body still remembered too much. A dull ache lingered in the muscles of his thighs, and his skin still tingled faintly where Gurney had touched him—not rough or careless, but with a kind of devastating certainty. Paul hadn’t known that his husband could be that… tender. Or that he himself could want it.

So he turned toward the terrace, drawn by the promise of stillness. But as he stepped into the sunlight, he halted.

There, at the small round table usually reserved for him alone, sat Gurney.

The table had been carefully laid with a single setting: a cup of steaming coffee, a bowl of pomegranates halved and glistening like rubies, and a plate of warm flatbread beside a dish of apricot jam. The snow-white tablecloth rippled gently in the morning breeze, catching the sun in its folds. Gurney’s arm rested along the curved iron back of the chair, the other curled loosely around the coffee cup. He looked entirely at home there—broad-shouldered and at ease, the lines at the corners of his eyes soft in the dappled sunlight, his expression unreadable, as though he had been waiting for Paul.

For a moment, Paul simply stood there. Gurney didn’t speak, just looked at Paul with a gaze that held none of last night’s fire—but none of its guilt, either.

Paul’s throat felt too tight. His heart had taken on that strange, fluttering rhythm again—the one that hadn’t entirely settled since he'd woken up in Gurney’s bed, his body wrapped in warmth that wasn’t just the sheets. He took a step forward, the moment unfolding around him like a thread unraveling from the edge of something fragile.

“What are you…” he began, but the rest of the sentence withered on his tongue, unfinished and unnecessary, because what did it matter? It was a foolish question to begin with—this was Gurney’s house, Gurney’s terrace, and Gurney himself, seated at the solitary little table as though it were the most natural thing in the world, as though he belonged there in the hush of the morning air, beneath the spreading shadows of the orchard trees. Paul bit down the rest of the sentence, pressing his lips together as if he could force back the surge of confusion rising in his throat like a second heartbeat.

“I’ll have my breakfast in the dining hall,” he said at last, his voice far quieter than he’d intended, the words almost apologetic as they left his mouth. His gaze flicked toward the servant, who was standing at attention near the doorway, holding a silver tray that bore Paul’s breakfast. He gave a small gesture, a twitch of the hand, dismissing him. 

“You can take it back,” Paul added with a sigh, already turning on his heel.

“No, have it here,” Gurney said, rising from his chair so suddenly it scraped against the floor with a sound too loud in the quiet of morning. “I’ll go to the dining hall if you want to be alone.”

Paul paused. He hadn’t expected Gurney to offer that. He turned slowly, studying the man before him, noting the strange stiffness in his shoulders, the anxious way he held himself—as if Paul’s presence had shaken something in him loose, something that couldn’t be packed away with soldierly precision this time.

“Please,” Gurney added, the word coming out too quickly, too unguarded.

Paul stared. There was something unfamiliar about this—about him—this man who had been his husband by a twist of fate and circumstance neither of them could fully name. Gurney looked less like a war-hardened commander this morning and more like a man trying, and failing, to hide the raw edges of uncertainty. It made something uncomfortable curl inside Paul’s chest, something far too close to guilt.

“I…” he started, only to stop again. The sharp, saltу scent still clung to his skin despite his bath—a scent he associated now with last night, with sweat and friction and the solid weight of Gurney’s body pressing down on him like inevitability. Paul exhaled slowly, blinking against the flood of sensation threatening to return.

“Don’t go,” he said finally, the words clipped and low. “We need to talk anyway.”

And with that, Paul stepped fully onto the terrace, letting the servant pass by him to set the tray down across from where Gurney had been sitting. The plates clinked faintly. The silence that followed was not quite hostile—but not comfortable either. It sat between them like a third presence at the table, waiting.

They didn’t speak right away. Gurney, already seated and sipping from a steaming cup of coffee, made no move to initiate conversation, and Paul, who had braced himself for awkwardness, found instead an unexpected—and almost unsettling—sense of peace. He ate slowly, tasting the flaky pastries, the sun-warmed fruit, and the strong, bitter brew poured for him without asking, while the quiet morning hummed gently around them, bees buzzing lazily through the orchard and the distant sound of gardeners clipping branches adding a soft rhythm beneath the birdsong. And all the while, Gurney sat across from him, seemingly content to let the silence stretch, not prodding, not watching him too closely, simply there, as if his presence required no justification.

To Paul’s utter surprise, it didn’t feel strained. It didn’t feel like something they had to get through, or smooth over with false starts and stiff words. In fact, he was startled by how comfortable it was. The silence between them wasn’t heavy or expectant—it simply existed, companionable in a way he hadn’t thought possible. It didn’t press on his chest or demand apologies or confessions. It allowed him to breathe. He sat, quietly chewing a bite of toast, and realized he felt something dangerously close to comfort.

Maybe we shouldn’t talk at all, he thought wryly, glancing at Gurney over the rim of his cup, maybe that’s the secret to a happy marriage. The thought made him huff a soft, involuntary laugh—more at himself than anything—and he looked away, embarrassed by the stupidity of it. But still, it lingered, warm and strange.

When he finally lifted his eyes from the cloudless horizon, he caught Gurney watching him. The man’s expression was unreadable, though not unfriendly.

“How’s your ankle?” Gurney asked, voice low and even.

Paul gave a small shrug, the ease he’d just felt beginning to slip from his shoulders like a dropped cloak. 

“Fine.” His tone was clipped. If Gurney was fishing for gratitude—for thanks for carrying him out of the pasture, for bandaging him, for whatever else—he could wait. Paul wouldn’t give it. Not after everything, not after Kaitain. Not yet.

The peaceful mood was gone as quickly as it had come, dispersed like mist under sunlight. I was right, Paul thought grimly, we really shouldn’t talk at all if we want to survive this.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Gurney replied, and a faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Did Duncan come back?” Paul asked, suddenly remembering the stallion left in the storm—and cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner.

“Not yet,” Gurney said, his brow tightening. “I think he just took his chance to graze off in the wild. He’s done it before. But he’ll come back. He loves you too much to disappear for good.”

Paul’s grip tightened on the handle of his cup. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking child,” he snapped, the words cutting out before he could stop them. He set the cup down hard, and the plates on the table clattered in protest.

“I didn’t mean to…” Gurney started, voice quiet. “I’m sorry, Paul. For all of it. For what I’ve done to you.”

And just like that, it was there again—not the memory of the storm, or the pain, or even the humiliation—but the night that followed, the hours between twilight and dawn spent in tangled sheets, in heat and motion and sensation too overwhelming to name. Paul’s body remembered before his mind did: the heavy press of Gurney’s chest, the scent of sweat and sex that clung to the room like incense. The memory came in a rush, vivid and physical, and his face went hot in an instant.

“What you did is unforgivable,” he said, turning away from Gurney’s anxious gaze, from the silent question hanging in his eyes. “Or… not easily forgivable.”

Gurney nodded slowly, fingers flexing around his cup, knuckles pale. “If you still want to leave,” he said, “I won’t stop you. Not this time. It’s your choice, Paul. And I’ll support whatever you decide.”

Paul stood, the motion abrupt, the scrape of his chair loud on the stone floor. “I haven’t made any decision yet,” he said flatly. “All I know is that it can’t go on like this. I need to think.”

He didn’t wait for Gurney’s reply. He turned and walked away, leaving the man alone on the terrace, the morning light growing warmer, but doing nothing to chase away the chill that had settled between them.

However, once he found himself alone again—no longer buffered by Gurney’s steady presence or distracted by the mechanical comfort of food and coffee—his thoughts scattered like dry leaves in the wind. Despite his earlier words, he didn’t feel any closer to a decision. In fact, the silence that had been so strangely peaceful just moments ago now pressed in from all sides, hollow and stifling. The house, with all its thick walls and long shadows, felt suddenly like a cavern designed to trap him in his own indecision.

Hoping that motion would help shake him loose from the restless knot tightening in his chest, he wandered to the stables. The smell of straw and saddle leather was familiar, grounding—but even here, a sharp pang hit him as he stepped up to Duncan’s stall and found it empty. The stallion’s absence was a fresh reminder of how quickly things could be lost—how one rash choice could spiral into a dozen unintended consequences.

Maybe Gurney was right, and the horse would return on his own time. Still, Paul wasn’t sure he’d be around long enough to see it happen. That thought lodged itself stubbornly in his mind, bitter and uninvited.

The indecision gnawed at him. Standing still felt unbearable. He should go out, ride to the pasture and search for Duncan himself—at least do something. Letting Gurney or anyone else handle it would feel like another act of passivity, another surrender he couldn’t stomach.

But as he stepped out into the open, the sky greeted him with an ominous cast. The air had changed, heavy with that electric stillness that always came before a summer storm. Clouds had begun to mass at the horizon, charcoal-gray with a sickly undertone of green. He could almost feel the atmosphere tightening around him, drawing in breath before the inevitable exhale of thunder and rain.

Paul stood on the street for a long moment, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t too late—that the weather might still hold, that he could find the stallion and return before the sky opened up. But the truth was written plainly above him: this storm wasn’t going to wait. And worse, some primitive part of his brain recoiled at the thought of being caught out there again, alone, soaked to the bone, cold and exposed with another horse he might fail to protect. He clenched his jaw and turned back toward the house, frustration roiling in his gut. It wasn’t just the weather that made him turn around. It was the quiet realization that, no matter how far he rode, some things—guilt, anger, confusion—were already riding with him.

Slowly, almost absentmindedly, Paul wandered through the vast, echoing expanse of the house, his footsteps muted against the thick rugs, his breath shallow as he listened to the rhythmic patter of rain beginning to tap against the windowpanes—soft and almost soothing at first, but soon growing more insistent, as if the storm were waking up in stages, stretching its limbs and preparing to unfurl in full, unrestrained force. 

The air had changed; it smelled faintly of damp stone and ozone, the scent that always came before the sky split open.

The rooms he passed now seemed transformed, as though the growing gloom had rendered them uninhabited, emptied of life. Half-darkness crept along the walls, pulling shadows into corners and banishing the sunlit clarity of morning. Lightning forked suddenly in one of the high windows above the stairwell, the jagged light bleaching everything pale for an instant before vanishing again, leaving behind a deeper darkness. Almost immediately, a growl of thunder rolled through the walls, steady and rising, like something waking underground.

He didn’t know how he ended up here—how his aimless steps had brought him to the thick oak doors of the library—but somehow they had. The doors creaked open, releasing a breath of air thick with old pages, varnished wood, and the faintest trace of dust that always seemed to linger no matter how often the room was cleaned.

He stepped inside without thinking, letting the doors swing gently shut behind him, the muffled thud of their closing sealing him off from the rest of the world. 

He didn’t know what he was looking for—philosophy, poetry, military history, perhaps something useless and romantic, a novel he could lose himself in. He let his fingers trail along the shelves, touching bindings as if he were searching by feel rather than sight. All he knew was that he needed something, anything, to pull his mind away from the weight pressing on his chest—from the storm, from Gurney’s words, from his own indecision. And for a moment, in the hush of the library, as the thunder grumbled again in the distance, it seemed almost possible.

Back on Caladan, in the heart of his family’s ancestral palace, there had been a library—vast, stately, and almost reverent in its grandeur. The walls there stretched impossibly high, lined with ancient tomes bound in leather and vellum, some so old that their titles had worn away entirely, their spines blank save for the gilded flecks that once announced their importance. Every volume was catalogued, indexed, and shelved with the kind of precision only noble houses with centuries of uninterrupted lineage could afford. It was a monument to Atreides history—majestic, intimidating, and, for all its order, never quite comfortable.

The library in the House Halleck, by comparison, was modest. It occupied only one room, tucked behind a corridor most guests never thought to explore. It didn’t boast soaring ceilings or a priceless collection curated by generations of scribes. Its books were not protected behind glass or organized by subject or author. But Paul liked it better. There was something about its unpolished warmth, its lived-in, worn-in intimacy that made it feel real—more human.

The oakwood shelves that lined the walls matched the dark paneling so seamlessly that they looked as if they had grown there, rather than been built. The gentle glow of the suspensor lamps, honey-colored and slightly dim, filled the room with light, changing the mood. Shadows gathered comfortably in corners, soft and unobtrusive, and the furniture—heavy chairs with carved arms and upholstery faded and worn to bald patches—invited you to sit for hours. 

Paul had never been able to explain it, but this room always seemed to welcome him, even when the rest of the house, or the world outside, felt cold and uncertain.

But more than the room itself, what he loved most were the books. They were everywhere—not just on shelves, but stacked on tables and windowsills. Many of them were old, their spines cracked, their covers frayed, and pages yellowed with age. Some bore creases from being left open too often; others were stuffed with bookmarks of all kinds—ribbons, slips of paper, even feathers or pressed flowers. There were even notes in the margins—scribbled in different hands, some sharp and academic, others loose and emotional. Paul liked to trace them with his finger, wondering who had written them, what they had thought, whether they’d argued with the text or simply made a note to remember something beautiful.

He took the second volume of A Cultural History of Chusuk and sank into his favorite chair, a deep, high-backed piece of furniture whose arms had grown shiny with age and frequent use. The moment he settled in, a sense of calm folded over him like a blanket. Outside, the storm had gathered strength, and the rain now lashed fiercely against the skylight window, creating a ceaseless percussion that seemed to push the rest of the world away. Thunder rolled softly in the distance, like a muffled drumbeat.

At first, Paul listened to the rhythm of the storm and the creak of the wood as the wind pressed against the walls. But soon, he stopped paying attention to the sounds around him, absorbed entirely in the world the book unfolded before him. 

He was so immersed that he didn’t quite register the door creaking open, nor the soft footfalls entering the room, only to come to an awkward stop behind him. But he didn’t need to look up. He felt the shift in the air, the familiar presence lingering at the edge of his awareness like a half-forgotten scent. Gurney.

Still, Paul raised his head and met his eyes.

“Sorry,” Gurney mumbled, clearly caught off guard. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

Paul closed the book with a soft thump, arching a brow. “Are you following me on purpose?”

“What? No!” Gurney looked positively scandalized, and the sheer dismay on his face nearly pulled a laugh from Paul’s throat. “I didn’t even know you were here. I just—I came to read, like I usually do—I’ll go, if you want—”

“Stay,” Paul said with a sigh, settling deeper into the chair. “It’s your house, after all.”

Gurney hesitated for a beat but then stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him with careful hands.

“You said you needed to think,” he offered gently, almost tentatively, though he crossed the room now.

“Well, as you can see, I’m not. Not at the moment, anyway.” Paul set the book aside on the small table next to him and gave Gurney a sideways glance. “Funny, though. We keep ending up in the same corners of the house.”

Gurney lowered himself into the chair opposite Paul, mirroring his posture without realizing it. The glow from the suspensor lamp cast a golden sheen across his weathered face, and Paul saw him smile.

“It’s not a very big house,” Gurney said. “And the library is by far its best part.”

Paul nodded in agreement. “You never know what you’ll find here. This, for example,” he added, tilting his head toward the book beside him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Gurney asked, brow furrowing.

Paul gave him a pointed look. “About your family. I always thought the Hallecks were merchant stock. Turns out you’re one of the ancient noble houses of Chusuk. That’s not nothing.”

Gurney exhaled, rubbing his jaw, visibly uncomfortable with the subject. “I didn’t think our family history would be interesting to you. The House Halleck was one of the Great Houses, yes, but that ended two hundred years ago. A tyrant stripped us of our title and estate. My grandfather fought to win back a name, if not the lands.” He paused, then shrugged with a lopsided, almost bitter smile. “But it’s all history now. And I’ve made my peace with being a merchant lord—or whatever ridiculous title people used to give me.”

Paul studied him for a moment, the way his expression flickered—open, then guarded again. But the words rang true. 

“Your House is as old and noble as Atreides,” Paul said softly, his fingers trailing along the smooth grain of the oak armrest. “Strange how little that means, sometimes. And how much.”

“All the noblemen were just people once,” Gurney said with a shrug, settling deeper into his chair. The rain hammered relentlessly against the skylight above them, a steady drumming that filled the quiet room. “It took one outstanding person to raise them to nobility. And Gurney the First—now there was the finest man our family ever produced.”

Paul’s curiosity was piqued. “Gurney the First?” he asked, cocking his head. “You were named after him?”

Gurney rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, a rare moment of self-consciousness crossing his face. “Yeah, me and a bunch of uncles. So technically, I’m Gurney the Fourth.” He grumbled the number as if it tasted bitter in his mouth.

Paul chuckled softly at the sudden vulnerability. "I'm sure you're just like him. Don't worry, Gurney the Fourth will make his mark soon enough." he teased, grinning at Gurney's puckered, embarrassed expression.

Gurney scoffed, shaking his head. “Please—we have nothing in common. We don't even look alike. He was a different person altogether.”

Paul glanced around the room, recalling the dark, somber faces staring down from the old portraits that lined the house’s walls. “Do you have his portraits?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.

“One or two,” Gurney replied, voice low. “He didn’t like being portrayed much. That’s probably the only thing we share,” he added with a soft smile that made his usual rough edges seem less sharp.

“Show me,” Paul said, rising from his chair.

Gurney led the way down a long, dim corridor lined with aged paintings and portraits. They passed many faces—grim, proud, wary—but Gurney didn’t pause until they reached a ladder that disappeared into the attic.

It was a cavernous space just under the roof, thick with dust and cluttered with forgotten relics and worn furniture. Gurney yanked a dusty white sheet off one large object, revealing an art rack overflowing with canvases stacked haphazardly.

A cloud of dust rose with the movement, making him sneeze.

“It should be somewhere here,” Gurney muttered, rifling through the paintings. Paul stepped closer, peering over his shoulder as the sun broke suddenly through a window, casting shafts of warm light into the dusty air.

“And who is this?” Paul asked, pointing at a portrait Gurney was about to shove back into the pile.

Gurney hesitated, then pulled the painting out again. Paul took it from his hands and moved toward the window, letting the light reveal the details.

The man in the portrait had tousled, light brown hair falling just over his forehead and ears. His face was youthful, open, with a strong jawline and smooth, sun-kissed skin. The features were symmetrical and boyishly handsome, with slightly deep-set eyes that squinted against the light, giving his smile a playful warmth. His nose was straight and well-proportioned; his lips full, curled in an easygoing grin that seemed to light up the entire face. The expression radiated confidence, friendliness, and a carefree attitude that Paul found almost magnetic.

It took Paul a moment to process.

“Is this…” Paul started, looking back at Gurney, disbelief catching in his voice.

“Yeah,” Gurney said reluctantly, his usual gruff tone softening. “Hate this bloody portrait. Reminds me what a fluffy-haired potato face I was at eighteen.”

“You’re eighteen here?” Paul asked, studying the portrait again, then glancing up at Gurney, noting how different the man looked now—hardened, scarred, yet still bearing a fierce pride.

Gurney stepped closer, pointing to a small date inscribed in the corner of the canvas. “See this? The year it was painted. The artist was a bastard who charged my dad triple for a piece of crap like this.”

Paul’s brow furrowed. “Your dad…” he murmured, still unable to wrap his mind around the transformation the portrait represented. “So this was before…”

Before the imprisonment in the Harkonnen slave pits, the endless trials and brutal scars of survival. The young man in the painting bore no scars, no sign of the hardships ahead.

Paul’s gaze lingered on the scar tracing Gurney’s cheek—something he had never asked about but had always noticed.

“You seemed so happy back then,” Paul said quietly, almost hesitantly, searching Gurney’s face for a trace of that youthful joy.

“I was,” Gurney replied simply. But his voice held a depth of sadness that twisted in Paul’s chest.

Instinctively, Paul reached out with his free hand, gently tracing the rough scar with his fingertips. He realized how little he truly knew about his husband’s past—the shadows behind those steady brown eyes. A yearning welled up inside him, a fierce desire to understand everything, to bridge the distance time and pain had carved between them.

Gurney’s thick fingers circled Paul’s wrist with a surprising gentleness, pulling his hand closer until soft lips brushed the center of Paul’s palm.

The tenderness of the gesture caught Paul off guard, making his breath hitch.

"I've done you wrong, my fair lord husband," Gurney murmured, his voice rough but steady as he met Paul's gaze. "You'd be right to walk away and leave me to face what I've earned. But know this - my life won't measure the same without you in it. There's no light like yours to compare against. Just having seen it, even briefly... that's a gift enough for me."

When his fingers released Paul’s wrist, Paul traced the side of Gurney’s face lightly, lingering on the temple where a pulse throbbed softly.

“What an eloquent way to avoid saying you're sorry." Paul needled gently, biting his lower lip to keep from smiling outright.

“I’m so—” Gurney began, but Paul held up a hand.

“Don’t start,” he said firmly but kindly. “I know you’re sorry. That doesn’t erase the atrocious thing you did to me on Kaitain.”

Gurney winced and looked down at his feet, shame flickering across his face.

“If I stay,” Paul continued, “I want you to trust me. To respect me the way I trust and respect you.” He lifted Gurney’s chin with a gentle touch, compelling him to meet his gaze.

“I will do my best, my lord,” Gurney said softly, his brown eyes suddenly burning with a fierce, unreadable emotion.

“I’m not your lord,” Paul sighed. “Just your husband.” He let go of Gurney’s chin and pressed the portrait against his chest. “And this,” he said with a small smile, “I’ll take with me.”

Gurney's eyes went wide.

"Paul—no. Please don't take that... not that one," he stammered as Paul turned toward the door.

Paul glanced back with a mischievous grin. "Perfect for my bedroom wall," 

"You're not actually hanging that," Gurney's voice cracked as he scrambled after him. “Paul, wait! It’s hidden for a reason—I look like a potato there.”

"Adorably potato-like," Paul called over his shoulder, already halfway down the stairs as Gurney's desperate "Hey!" reverberated off the walls. 

They made their way downstairs in a light scatter of footsteps and snide remarks, the sound of their voices overlapping—Paul’s teasing lilt and Gurney’s gravelly grumble, a rhythm that had somehow become familiar in its contradiction, comfortable even in irritation. Paul, smiling to himself, sent a servant off with a short, imperious gesture—he wanted the portrait up now, this very minute, no further discussion—and Gurney, dragging his feet like a man on the way to his own execution, still followed him all the way to the bedroom, hands flailing helplessly with every protest he made.

“I never should’ve shown it to you,” he muttered, his voice nearly drowned out by Paul’s low laugh and the creak of the wooden floor. “I mean, you wanted to see Gurney the First, didn’t you? What happened to him, eh? Suddenly not interested in my family history?”

“I’ll see his portrait next time,” Paul called over his shoulder as he stepped into the room, holding the frame up against the bare wall with the reverence of someone handling a holy relic. He tilted it this way and that, judging the light, frowning a little, then brightening again. “Is it fine like this?”

“Horrible,” Gurney said immediately, without even pretending to think about it. His arms were folded, and he looked personally offended by the entire idea. “I can’t believe anyone would want to look at that stupid face every morning.”

“Well, actually,” Paul said, his voice slow and syrupy, deliberately coy as he shifted the portrait a little higher, “I can believe it. You’re a very handsome man.”

There was a silence behind him, thick and breathless, and then the softest, smallest sound—a quiet, involuntary gasp.

“You’re just saying that to mock me,” Gurney whispered, and there was such fragile disbelief in the way he said it that Paul turned around slowly, as though any sudden movement might cause the moment to fracture and dissolve.

He placed the portrait carefully on the floor and crossed the room in two long steps, standing before Gurney and pressing the flat of his hand to the center of Gurney’s chest, feeling the warmth beneath layers of fabric, the strong, steady rhythm of a heart he’d come to know far too well.

“Now I can’t believe you still think that,” Paul said softly, his voice dipping into something tender, intimate. “Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after last night…”

But his words trailed off unfinished, broken by the echoing thunder of feet pounding down the hallway. A second later, the door burst open with a bang that made both of them start, and a breathless servant stumbled in, red envelope in hand, the kind used only for messages too urgent to wait.

“Sir,” the boy panted, looking at Gurney. “It’s from the Lady Jessica.”

The room turned still. Gurney took the letter without a word, broke the seal with quick fingers, and scanned the lines in silence. His expression darkened by degrees, until even Paul could feel the shift in the air, the pressure of something vast and terrible settling between them.

“What is it?” Paul asked, his voice already tight with dread, but Gurney didn’t answer—he only handed over the paper, his hand shaking slightly.

Paul took it.

His eyes found the familiar, precise script of his mother’s hand, and in that instant, something inside him shrank away, recoiling even before the meaning fully registered.

“…your father, Duke Leto Atreides, died today under circumstances still unclear to me...”

The words beyond swam away from him, drowned in a rising tide of shock. Everything dissolved into watery shapes.

“This cannot be…” he heard his own voice whispering. “This simply cannot be…”

The letter crumpled in his hand. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

“Paul…” Gurney said gently, but Paul was already moving, shaking off the attempt at comfort, walking out of the room as if in a dream, the corridor stretching before him like a tunnel with no end.

The world had fractured, and yet his body moved as if muscle memory alone could stitch reality back together. He didn’t know where he was going. The tears came suddenly, violently, as though his body had been holding its breath. They burned tracks down his cheeks, hot and shameful, and he didn’t wipe them away. What did it matter now? His steps faltered, his boots catching on nothing, the ground tilting beneath him like a ship in a squall.

When he burst through the front doors, the sunlight struck him like a slap. It was obscene, that golden light. The sky stretched blue and indifferent above the vineyards, the storm scrubbed clean from the world as if it had never been. Somewhere beyond the garden walls, workers called to each other, their laughter rising and falling with the breeze. 

“Sir!” someone shouted. “Sir, look who’s back!”

It was the stable boy, beaming, waving toward the gates.

And there, in the golden sunlight, stood Duncan—the stallion—gleaming like a creature from myth, his coat dark and lustrous, his mane cascading like a black river down his neck, his head lifted high with regal pride.

Paul’s heart broke all over again.

He staggered forward and threw his arms around the stallion’s neck, pressing his face into that fragrant, rain-washed mane, breathing in wildflowers and sweat and something animal and warm. And there, held by Duncan’s steady stillness, Paul began to weep—loud, broken sobs that tore out of him with no thought of dignity or restraint, the kind of weeping that only comes when something fundamental shatters, and there is nothing left but the raw truth of grief.

Chapter Text

Gurney had been on Caladan only once before in his life—back in those distant, almost dreamlike days when Duke Leto himself had freed him from the stinking hell of the Harkonnen slave pits—and even now, decades later, the memory of that moment still had the raw, blinding clarity of sunlight after years underground.

Back then, stepping onto this planet had been like stepping into a vision out of some half-forgotten song: forests deep and green, smelling of salt and wet moss; the ocean, vast and cold, unspooling forever toward jagged shores; mountains hunched like sleeping titans under the weight of slow, roiling clouds; and the castle, ancient and patient, watching over it all for countless generations of Atreides. And he thought, with the certainty of a man who had seen far too much ugliness, that he’d never set eyes on a place more beautiful.

And now—now that feeling of beauty still lingered somewhere in him, though it was mixed with something colder, heavier, for this time he was not arriving as a grateful freedman nor as a soldier in service to a living Duke, but as a mourner—worse, as someone who had failed the man’s son. The sea winds cut sharper, the clouds pressed lower, and the stones of the castle seemed darker than memory allowed. He told himself it was the occasion, the grief in the air. But grief alone couldn’t account for the leaden pull in his chest.

They had barely reached Caladan in time. Paul had told him on the journey—flatly, distantly—that the Duke must be buried within three days, before the fourth sunrise, or the soul might never pass on to the ancestors. No warmth, no inflection, just the dry precision of a man reciting a law.

Since Chusuk, Paul had barely spoken to him at all. When he did, it was in clipped, necessary words—arrangements, instructions, confirmations—delivered without looking at him for more than a heartbeat. Gurney could still remember a mischievous smile on that face from mere days ago, and now the memory felt like a trick of the light, something he’d imagined. Paul’s expression was carved in stone, his eyes fixed on some invisible horizon far beyond the ship’s walls.

Gurney sat opposite him through the long, silent hours, feeling the thrum of the engines under his boots like a slow, relentless hammer, each vibration driving the truth deeper: there was a gulf between them now, wide as any ocean, and no bridge left standing.

Because you have betrayed his trust, he thought, watching the clean line of Paul’s jaw, the stillness of his hands. Because you behaved like a true bastard on Kaitain, and there are no excuses left to offer, no clever words to soften what you did.

He wanted— Gods, how he wanted —to say something. To touch Paul’s hand, to break that wall of silence if only to hear a word that wasn’t an order or a formality. But the weight of his own guilt pinned him to his seat. If he reached out, Paul might look at him with that same cold, flat stare and pull further away, and Gurney knew he couldn’t bear it.

So he sat there, silent, every parsec they traveled another measure of distance that had nothing to do with stars, and everything to do with the fact that he could not, for all his strength, save the man he loved from drowning in his grief.

Upon their arrival, the castle Caladan was already overflowing with people — stiff-faced dignitaries and members of the old nobility who had once graced the Duke’s banquets, distant cousins, retainers, childhood companions of the Atreides line who had traveled from the farthest reaches of the planet to say their last goodbye. The great hallways murmured with subdued voices, footsteps echoing against ancient stone, the air heavy with salt from the sea and the scent of rain that had drifted in with the guests’ clothes.

Jessica stood at the center of the great hall, flanked by two silent servants, her posture drawn in on itself yet unbroken, pale and severe in the grey of mourning. The color matched Paul’s exactly, but where grief seemed to hollow her son from within, in her it forged something harder — an unbending steel that held the whole household upright. 

Gurney paused on the threshold, unable to step forward. The vast, sea-damp air between them felt like a barrier he had no right to cross. She was much as he remembered from decades past — the young, dazzling concubine who had once stood quietly at Duke Leto’s side — only now honed into something colder, more enduring.

“Mother?” Paul’s voice was low, almost tentative, as if speaking the word might crack something fragile inside him. At that single syllable, Jessica’s composure broke just enough for her to move — quick, decisive — toward her son. Paul met her halfway, the rigid mask he had worn for days softening in an instant, and they collided in a fierce, unguarded embrace.

Gurney stood frozen where he was, watching the transformation. With him, Paul had been ice, every word clipped and distant. But now, in his mother’s arms, his grief poured out unchecked, the careful composure dissolving into something raw and human. Gurney had never felt more like an outsider — a figure pressed against the glass of someone else’s life. This was not his family, not his grief to share. He was only here because duty and circumstance had wedged him into their world, and even in the Duke’s death, he felt unfit to stand among them.

“What happened? How did it happen?” Paul’s words were muffled against Jessica’s shoulder, stripped of all the authority he had forced himself to wear since Chusuk. The naked pain in his voice stabbed at Gurney’s chest — part sympathy, part guilt, part the bitter knowledge that he was powerless to ease it.

Jessica pulled back slightly, her hands cradling her son’s face, thumbs brushing wind-flushed skin.

“The doctors say it was a heart attack,” she said, her tone soft but edged with something unyielding. “They claim it was swift, that he felt no pain… but he was in perfect health, Paul. Perfect health. I think it was—” She stopped abruptly, her gaze slipping over Paul’s shoulder and landing on Gurney.

The shift was immediate and cold: from grieving mother to Bene Gesserit judge. Her eyes measured him, stripped him bare, weighed him against some private standard he could never meet.

Paul, frowning, looked between them. “You think it was what? Mother, if you know something—”

“Not here,” she said firmly, with the faintest shake of her head. “Not now. We will talk later, my dear.”

Her eyes stayed on Gurney, unblinking. The weight of that look made the hair at the back of his head rise. In her silence, he felt again the truth that had been gnawing at him since they’d landed: this was not his place, and no matter what he had once been to House Atreides, he stood now only as a tolerated intruder at the edge of their grief.

The ceremony was set to begin only a couple of hours after their arrival — for everyone had been waiting for them, and waiting they must, since Chusuk lay among the farthest of the Imperial planets. The mourners had long since gathered in the castle’s great hall, their pearl-grey garments muted in the half-light, their expressions drawn and solemn, their voices subdued to a murmur. 

On Caladan, the Atreides dead were laid to rest in the Field of Ancestors — a windswept expanse beyond the castle walls, where rows of weathered stone tombs stood like silent sentinels against the sea, their carved surfaces crusted with salt and lichen. Each bore the sigil of the one interred within, the lines worn soft by centuries of wind and brine.

The long procession began at the castle gates. Cloaks of pale grey billowed in the damp wind, and the mourners’ hair clung in dark strands against their faces. Every step down the sloping path toward the field was deliberate, as though the act of walking itself were a ritual — a slow penance for still being among the living. At the front came the pallbearers, carrying Duke Leto’s casket, fashioned from Caladan oak and bound with bands of black iron.

When they reached the Field of Ancestors, the tide’s voice was louder, the wind sharper. The stone tomb prepared for Leto stood open, its interior lined with polished granite, the family crest engraved deep into the lintel. Beside it waited a bowl of seawater brought from the cove below, a Caladan custom for cleansing the dead of the world’s burdens before they joined their forebears. Jessica stepped forward first, dipping her fingers into the cold water and letting the droplets fall across the casket’s surface.  In a voice roughened by grief, she spoke the words that had been spoken for every Atreides before: “As the tide returns to the ocean, so returns the life we were given.” Paul followed, his movements precise but weighted, his eyes fixed on the sigil above the tomb as if memorizing it. One by one, the household retainers and allies approached to do the same.

When the final mourner had stepped back, the casket was lowered into the tomb. The stonemasons moved with practiced solemnity, sealing the slab in place with slow, deliberate strokes of their chisels — each strike echoing into the grey air like a heartbeat fading away. The sea wind tugged at Gurney’s cloak, the salt biting against his lips, and he thought, not for the first time, how Caladan’s farewells felt less like endings than like surrendering something precious to a force both ancient and enduring.

He stood among dozens of mourners, watching the final stone set flush against its frame, the sigil catching the weak light before settling into shadow. It was a farewell stripped of fire’s violence or soil’s smothering dark. The Field of Ancestors stretched out before him, tombs scattered across the grass like the markers of a long, unbroken vigil, each one keeping watch over the restless sea.

It was a relief to witness, and yet it brought Gurney no peace of his own, for the entire time, standing there among the pearl-grey crowd, he felt the keen edge of his own isolation. As he watched Paul and Jessica together, he understood with sudden clarity that there was a rift between himself and his husband, one that all his affection could not bridge — he was still, in so many unspoken ways, a stranger to him. And Jessica’s pointedly cold, measuring gaze since their arrival had only deepened that wound.

However, at the funeral’s banquet, he took the seat beside Paul as his spouse, the place that by every right should have felt like his own, though tonight it seemed like the most precarious position in the world. Paul, pale and silent beside him, seemed to barely notice his presence, answering the murmured condolences with the reserved, almost brittle politeness of a man who had learned to hide his feelings so deeply that the mask itself had become his second face.

Not once did he shed a tear in public, not even when the older retainers, who had served Duke Leto for decades, clasped his hand and bowed their heads in grief. But Gurney remembered too well the boy he had seen back on Chusuk, weeping without restraint, fingers tangled in Duncan’s coarse mane, grief racking him until Gurney thought it might split him in two. Now, when he stole careful glances at his husband, the fine lines of Paul’s handsome face seemed carved from stone, and that unyielding composure made something twist painfully in Gurney’s chest.

He wanted to reach for him then, to touch his hand beneath the table, to lean close and whisper something—anything—that might let Paul know he didn’t have to bear this alone, that he could lean on him, even just for a moment, but the unspoken distance between them was like a wall built of both pride and guilt, and Gurney found that his courage failed him at the very moment he needed it most.

All day, through the quiet ceremonies and the weight of tradition pressing down, Gurney tried to piece together what had happened, but the castle yielded no signs of investigation, no guards inquiring, no murmurs of an inquest, only the same slow, heavy rhythm of servants walking through the corridors and the faint, careful whispers that trailed behind him.

From those whispers, from the sidelong looks of the mourners and the half-swallowed fragments of gossip, he began to understand: the prevailing belief was that the Duke had taken his own life. The thought landed like a stone in Gurney’s gut.

He could not reconcile it with the Leto he had known: the man who had endured disgrace and loss without ever once surrendering to despair, who had stood against the Harkonnens and the machinations of the Landsraad with the same steady resolve, who, when his power was stripped from him, had still chosen to live, to fight, to protect those he could.

No—Leto Atreides was not the kind of man to turn his back on life, no matter the cost.

Jessica, he suspected, knew far more than she was willing to say, her eyes betraying an awareness deeper than grief when they met his across the hall, yet for reasons Gurney could not fathom, she made no move to contradict the whispers, no attempt to quell the ugly notion that Leto had abandoned his people by choice.

If she had given even a hint to the truth, perhaps the shadow hanging over the name Atreides might have lifted, but she held her silence with the same precision as a blade kept sheathed—not discarded, merely waiting—and that silence, more than the rumors themselves, filled Gurney with an unease he could not shake.

The hushed conversations at the table gradually swelled as the wine loosened tongues and softened manners, the clink of glasses punctuating half-formed laughter that occasionally flared into chuckles. Gurney didn’t begrudge them—it was human nature. People were people, after all, and they had come here not solely to mourn the Duke but to remind themselves, perhaps unconsciously, that they still breathed, still ate, still drank. That life, even in the shadow of death, demanded its own celebration.

The great dining hall smelled faintly of roasted fish and wine, though the heavy air seemed to cling to every guest, weighing down their shoulders even as they tried to speak of other things. Gurney found himself mostly silent, picking at his food, his thoughts elsewhere—until movement at the head of the table caught his eye.

The Lady Jessica rose from her seat with a kind of deliberate grace, her pearl-grey mourning dress catching the low light of the chandeliers. The conversations died almost instantly, a ripple of stillness passing from one guest to the next.

“I thank you,” she began, her voice clear and level, “for coming here today to honor the memory of his Grace, despite knowing our House is out of favor with the Emperor.”

A murmur ran along the table like a faint current—uneasy, reluctant. Gurney knew the sound of fear when he heard it. They were still afraid, every one of them, and he’d wager half were present only out of calculation, hoping to claim some advantage or inheritance in the Duke’s absence.

“Today,” Jessica went on, “I have heard much from you—that our Duke’s death was untimely and sudden. This is true. And I want all of you to know that I believe his death was not an accident.”

Silence. A heavy, almost tangible silence. Gurney felt it settle over the table like a shroud. Across the flickering light, he saw Paul go utterly still.

Without thinking, Gurney reached for his husband’s hand beneath the table. Paul’s fingers were icy, rigid in his grasp, and though Gurney squeezed gently, hoping for some sign of recognition, Paul gave none—his entire being was fixed on his mother’s words.

“And those responsible for the Duke’s death,” Jessica continued, each syllable sharp as a drawn blade, “should know it will be avenged—no matter what.”

There was no tremor in her voice, no hesitation. She did not sound like a grieving widow; she sounded like a commander preparing for war. Her narrowed eyes and measured pause made Gurney think she already knew exactly who the killers were, though for reasons of her own she would not speak their names—not yet.

Beneath the table, Paul’s hand grew warmer in his, and for a moment Gurney imagined that the touch meant something—until Paul slowly pulled his hand back, his attention still locked on Jessica.

Around them, whispers rose again, cautious but insistent, threads of speculation weaving through the air. And in that tangle of hushed voices, Gurney caught one word repeated more than once—low, venomous, certain: Harkonnens .

As the funeral banquet was drawing to a close, some of the guests were quietly escorted to the spaceport to prepare for their departures, while the rest—those who had decided to remain—were led to their chambers within the castle, in anticipation of the solemn ceremony scheduled for the next day, the moment when the Duke’s last will would be disclosed to all.

A few mourners still lingered near the far end of the hall, speaking in hushed tones, their grey garments blurring into the dark stone. Gurney waited until Jessica stood momentarily apart, her gaze fixed on the great window as if the ocean beyond might give her answers.

He stepped toward her, boots echoing faintly on the flagstones.

“My lady,” he began, carefully, respectfully. “No one in my life has done as much for me as the Duke. I’ll do anything to help you find those who took him from us. Say what you need, and I’ll see it done.”

She turned slowly, her eyes narrowing, and the shift in her expression made the back of his neck prickle.

“Anything?” she repeated, her voice low but already edged. “From you?”

He blinked, uncertain. “Aye. You have my word.”

Her lips thinned. “Your word.” She gave a short, bitter laugh that didn’t suit her at all. “Do you think I’d trust that? Do you think I’d let you anywhere near the matter?”

“My lady, I don’t—”

“You’re the last person I would ask for help, Gurney Halleck,” she cut in, her tone tightening, gathering heat. “How dare you show yourself here, offering condolences as if you—”

“Mother.”

Paul’s voice came from just behind him, calm but slightly raised to be heard across the hall. Gurney started—he hadn’t heard him approach. Paul crossed to them quickly, laying a hand on Jessica’s elbow. “You’re tired,” he said, his voice warm but firm. “Let me take you upstairs. You need rest.”

Gurney turned his head to look at him, searching for some flicker of explanation in his face, but Paul’s expression was all composure. He hadn’t heard. He couldn’t have.

Paul inclined his head slightly toward Gurney, polite, distant. “Forgive us. It has been a very hard day.”

And just like that, they were walking away together, Jessica leaning into her son’s presence as if it steadied her. Gurney stayed where he was, the murmur of the other mourners a dull hum in his ears, the memory of her words replaying again and again. He had no idea what offense she believed he’d committed—but the loathing in her eyes had been real. Real enough to hollow him out.

He himself was escorted to a chamber assigned by court protocol to house both him and Paul as husbands, though Paul had not followed, instead choosing to remain with Lady Jessica. Gurney understood very well that in such turbulent times it was only natural, perhaps even inevitable, that Paul would lean on his blood—on his mother—rather than on a stranger who had so recently managed to betray the fragile trust between them.

Unable to find rest, Gurney stood by the window, the cold glass pressing against his palm as he stared out into the black stretch of the night, the stillness punctuated only by the distant howl of the wind, and there, stripped of all pretense, he allowed himself a bitter admission—that beneath his simmering sympathy for Paul lay envy. His husband had a family, a history, memories that Gurney himself was denied; he had never been afforded the grace of mourning the bodies of his own kin, of giving them a proper burial, a sacred farewell. This envy, raw and unspoken, was a wound he guarded fiercely, certain he could never reveal it to Paul, especially now. 

And yet, Jessica’s words about Duke Leto’s death—that it had not been an accident—echoed in his mind like a riddle, unsettling him deeply, because though the Atreides had been broken and humiliated, and though the cruel Feyd reveled in toying with the defeated, keeping them alive only to inflict deeper wounds, Gurney knew the Atreides were no longer the threat they once were.

He was so lost in the shadows of his own thoughts that he barely registered the soft creak of the door. When he turned, his breath caught at the sight of Paul standing there, framed by the dim corridor light—still clad in pearl-gray mourning attire, impossibly fragile yet unbearably real. The fatigue and defiance in Paul’s eyes sent a sharp pang of protectiveness through Gurney’s chest.

“I thought you’d still be awake,” Paul murmured, his voice rough as he stepped inside. The faint scent of sandalwood clung to him, lingering from the day’s wear.

Gurney reached instinctively for the suspensor lamp, but Paul’s quiet command stopped him. “Don’t. My eyes hurt.”

Without another word, Paul moved to the window, standing so close that the warmth of his body brushed against Gurney’s side. The contact sent a ripple of electricity up Gurney’s spine.

“What did you say to piss off my mother?” Paul asked.

“I offered my help,” Gurney shrugged. “If she thinks it’s the Harkonnens—”

“The Harkonnens!” Paul scoffed, cutting him off. For the first time since Chusuk, real emotion edged his voice—anger. “It’s easy to blame them for everything. Easier than admitting she was a lousy wife who didn’t know a damn thing about her husband.”

“You can’t possibly think it was… suicide,” Gurney ventured carefully.

Paul let out a bitter laugh. “How could it be? The ‘honorable Duke Atreides’ would never take his own life.” His voice turned razor-sharp. “Look around, Gurney. Everything’s in ruins. The castle’s a wreck, the planet’s a wasteland. Imagine how he felt—watching his enemies gloat over his failures, his so-called allies abandon him. And then he sells his only son to a wine merchant to pay his debts.”

The words struck Gurney like a slap.

“That’s not what happened,” he protested, turning to face Paul—only to find his expression cold, cruel.

“Maybe not for you. But for me? That’s exactly how it was.” Paul’s voice was venomous. “They didn’t ask me. They just shipped me off to my new owner on Chusuk like a fucking slave.”

“I don’t own you!” Gurney snapped, louder than he’d intended.

Paul bristled. “Big words from the man who lied to me and drugged me.”

“Paul, I’m sorry—it was a mistake—”

“A mistake?” Paul’s breath hitched with fury. “Don’t pretend you see me as an equal, Halleck. Not when you’ve locked me in your house like some caged animal.”

This is grief talking , Gurney told himself, fighting back his own rising anger. He doesn’t mean it.

“From the moment you arrived on Chusuk,” he said, forcing calm into his voice, “you were free to leave. I told you—this was a marriage in name only. I never forced you into anything.”

Paul’s laugh was icy. “Right. The marriage contract had nothing to do with you.”

Gurney’s jaw tightened. “You could’ve left Chusuk then. You can still leave, if that’s what you want.”

Silence stretched between them, the vast Caladan sky mocking their turmoil. Gurney’s hands flexed, aching to reach out, but the air crackled with Paul’s barely leashed rage.

“I should’ve gone home after the wedding,” Paul said bitterly. “Maybe Dad would still be alive.”

“It’s not your fault,” Gurney said, stepping closer.

Paul shoved him weakly, defiance burning in his eyes. “Don’t tell me what to feel! He lied—to her, to me. Years of it. And now this… he just gave up.” His voice cracked, tears glistening. “I’m sick of pretending.”

Gurney grabbed his wrists, grip firm. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this. You think I wanted to be your keeper? I’m here because I care, damn it!”

Paul wrenched free, stumbling back. “Care?” His chest heaved. “Then why do I feel so alone?”

His voice broke. Suddenly, the fight drained out of him. He sagged forward, pressing his face into Gurney’s neck, trembling. Reluctantly, Gurney wrapped an arm around him, bracing for rejection—but Paul leaned into him, breaths ragged.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Paul muttered, voice thick. “I can’t do this alone.”

Gurney’s throat tightened. His hand settled on Paul’s back, fingers tracing the sharp ridges of his spine. “You’re not alone,” he growled. “I’m here, Paul. Whether you hate me for it or not.”

Paul pulled back, eyes blazing through tears. “Then prove it.”

Before Gurney could react, Paul surged forward, crushing their lips together in a fierce, angry kiss. His arms locked around Gurney’s neck, fingers digging in—daring him to pull away.

“Paul, stop—” Gurney tried, voice hoarse, hands gripping Paul’s shoulders to push him back. “You’re not thinking straight. You’re grieving—”

Paul’s teeth sank into Gurney’s lower lip, sharp enough to draw blood, the sting igniting a fire in Gurney’s veins. “Don’t patronize me,” Paul hissed, shoving closer, bodies colliding. “You’re my husband, aren’t you? Act like it.”

Gurney’s restraint snapped, arousal flaring despite himself. “You want me to play the part?” he growled, grabbing Paul’s waist, fingers digging into flesh. “Fine. But don’t cry to me when you regret it.”

Paul’s eyes flashed, defiant and wild. “I won’t regret it,” he spat, hands tearing at Gurney’s shirt, buttons straining. “Fuck me, Gurney. Make me feel something else. Anything.”

Paul’s lips crashed against his, teeth clashing, tongues warring in a battle as old as desire itself. Gurney growled into the kiss, hands already tearing at Paul’s clothes, fabric ripping under his grip like parchment. Buttons pinged against the stone walls, lost in the shadows.

They hit the mattress hard, the impact jolting through them. The scent of sweat and salt and something darker—something feral—filled the air. Gurney’s eyes raked over Paul’s naked form, illuminated only by the faint glow of starlight. His skin was pale, stretched taut over lean muscle, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts. His cock stood thick and flushed against his stomach, already glistening at the tip.

Gurney didn’t hesitate. He descended on him like a man starved, his mouth sealing over Paul’s collarbone, teeth scraping the delicate skin before biting down hard enough to bruise. Paul gasped, his back arching off the bed.

“Bastard,” Paul hissed, but there was no real venom in it—only heat, only hunger. Gurney dragged his tongue lower, circling a nipple before sucking it between his teeth, biting just shy of pain. Paul’s hips jerked, his cock smearing wetness against Gurney’s abdomen.

“You’re already dripping,” Gurney muttered, voice rough. “Like a boy who’s never been touched.”

Paul’s eyes flashed, defiance and arousal warring in his gaze. “Then do something about it.”

Gurney didn’t need to be told twice. His mouth trailed lower, tongue tracing the rigid lines of Paul’s abdomen before finally—finally—licking a hot stripe up the length of his cock. Paul’s breath hitched, his thighs tensing. Gurney didn’t tease. He took him deep, swallowing him down in one brutal motion, throat working around him.

Paul swore, his hips bucking, but Gurney pinned him down with a firm hand on his stomach. He sucked hard, hollowing his cheeks, tongue pressing against the throbbing vein underneath. The taste of him—salt and musk and the bitter tang of precome—flooded Gurney’s senses, driving him wild. His own cock ached, straining against the confines of his trousers, but he ignored it. This wasn’t about him. Not yet.

“Fuck—Gurney—” Paul’s voice was wrecked already, raw and desperate.

Gurney hummed around him, the vibration wringing a broken cry from Paul’s throat. He bobbed faster, lips tight, until Paul’s body went rigid, his back bowing off the bed as he came with a shout, spilling hot and thick down Gurney’s throat. Gurney swallowed every drop, lapping at him until Paul was writhing from oversensitivity, shoving at his shoulders.

But Gurney wasn’t done.

He pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, watching as Paul lay there, chest heaving, skin flushed. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, but there was still fire in them. Still a challenge.

“You’re not finished,” Paul rasped, legs spreading in blatant invitation.

Gurney’s blood burned. He leaned down, capturing Paul’s mouth in a filthy kiss, letting him taste himself on Gurney’s tongue. “No,” he agreed. “I’m not.”

He fumbled for the lube in the bedside table, then slicked his fingers hastily before pressing one against Paul’s entrance, circling the tight ring of muscle. Paul tensed for only a second before forcing himself to relax, pushing back against Gurney’s hand.

“Stop teasing,” he gritted out.

Gurney thrust a finger inside without warning, earning a sharp gasp. He worked him open roughly, adding a second finger almost immediately, scissoring them, stretching him with little finesse. Paul’s nails dug into Gurney’s shoulders, his breath coming in ragged pants.

“Fuck—more—”

Gurney obliged, adding a third finger, crooking them just enough to make Paul jerk, a strangled moan tearing from his throat.

“You want it like this?” Gurney growled, fingers thrusting deep. “Hard and fast?”

Paul’s eyes burned into his. “I want you to stop talking and fuck me.”

Gurney’s cock throbbed. He withdrew his fingers, ignoring Paul’s noise of protest, and shoved his trousers down just enough to free himself. He was painfully hard, his length flushed and leaking. He slicked himself hastily before positioning himself at Paul’s entrance, the head pressing against the tight furl of muscle.

“It’s going to hurt,” Gurney warned, voice rough.

Paul bared his teeth. “Good.”

Gurney slammed in with one brutal thrust, sheathing himself to the hilt in one stroke. Paul’s cry was raw, his body clamping down around Gurney like a vise, hot and impossibly tight. Gurney gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to come right then.

“Fuck,” he hissed, hips jerking instinctively.

Paul’s breath came in short, sharp bursts, his fingers clawing at the sheets. “Move,” he demanded.

Gurney didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled out almost completely before driving back in, setting a punishing pace from the start. The slap of skin echoed in the chamber, the bed creaking under their weight. Paul met every thrust with a snap of his hips, his body taking everything Gurney gave him.

Gurney’s hands gripped Paul’s hips hard enough to bruise, his fingers digging into the flesh as he fucked into him with relentless force. He leaned down, biting at Paul’s shoulder, marking him, claiming him.

“You belong to me,” Gurney rasped, breath hot on Paul’s neck.

Paul’s laugh was raw, challenging. “Make me believe it.”

Gurney’s vision blurred with raw heat. He seized Paul by the waist, rough hands flipping him onto his stomach, yanking him up onto his knees with a growl. He thrust back into the tight, slick heat, shifting the angle just enough to wrench a sharp cry from Paul.

“There—fuck, right there—” Paul babbled, his voice breaking.

Gurney pistoned into him, each thrust driving deeper, harder. He could feel his own release building, coiling tight in his gut. One hand snaked around Paul’s front, wrapping around his cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts.

Paul came with a cry, his body spasming around Gurney, his release spilling hot over Gurney’s fingers. The sensation was enough to send Gurney over the edge. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself deep, spilling inside Paul with a groan, his hips jerking erratically as he rode out his climax.

They collapsed in a heap, sweat-slick and panting, limbs tangled. Gurney’s heart hammered against his ribs, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Paul lay beneath him, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his skin flushed and marked.

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then Paul turned his head, meeting Gurney’s gaze.

“Again,” he whispered in the dark. Gurney’s grip tightened, ready to oblige.

***

Gurney stirred awake, the sharp stab of sunlight slicing through the tall window, painting the room in harsh golden streaks. His body felt loose, muscles warm and languid as if he’d just come off the training floor, a fleeting peace settling over him. But the calm shattered like glass as the memories of last night roared back—raw, frenzied, a collision of grief and desire that left him reeling. Paul’s trembling body beneath him, the desperate clash of their lips, the way they’d torn into each other like men drowning. His stomach twisted, a sickening mix of guilt and need.

“Damn it all,” he muttered, scrubbing his face with calloused hands, trying to shove down the storm in his mind. The bed beside him was empty, the sheets cold, only a crumpled pillow bearing the faint shape of Paul’s head. The vivid echo of their night—Paul’s ragged moans, the bruising grip of his hands—sent a pulse of heat through Gurney’s core, his cock stirring traitorously. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to breathe. He’d crossed a line, let his own want prey on Paul’s vulnerability, and the weight of it crushed him. He had to find him, had to make this right before the fragile thread between them snapped.

A soft knock at the door jolted him, nearly sending him tumbling off the bed. His heart leapt, half-hoping it was Paul, but it was only a servant, voice muted as she invited him to breakfast. Gurney swallowed the knot in his throat, rising to pull on his clothes, each motion deliberate as he tried to steady his fraying nerves.

The slave pits had left him with a soldier’s discipline, but no amount of control could quell the dread pooling in his gut.

The dining hall buzzed with tension, a low hum of nobles, retainers, and advisors whispering in tight clusters. At the center, Paul sat beside Lady Jessica, still draped in his grey mourning garb, his face a mask of rigid detachment. Their eyes met across the room, and Paul’s gaze was a blade—cold, sharp, his slight nod so stiff it felt like a dismissal. Gurney’s chest tightened, the distance between them a chasm he didn’t know how to cross. He wanted to stride over, drag Paul somewhere private, spill out an apology for last night’s reckless heat, explain how grief had twisted them into something desperate and raw. But Paul’s icy reserve pinned him in place. He took a slow breath and joined the others at the table, his hands unsteady as he reached for a glass.

Breakfast passed in a blur of forced pleasantries, the clink of cutlery and murmurs of condolence grating against Gurney’s nerves. Soon after, the great hall filled with a heavy, expectant hush as the attendees took their places, the air thick with grief and uncertainty. Gurney stood near the edge of the assembly, his gaze locked on the long oak table where the House Atreides’ attorney now approached, his steps slow and deliberate. In his hands was a thick envelope, sealed with the Duke’s signet ring, its wax emblem a stark reminder of Leto’s absence. Gurney’s pulse quickened, his soldier’s instincts screaming that whatever came next would shift everything.

The attorney cleared his throat, voice steady but heavy as he broke the seal and drew out the parchment. The room fell deathly silent, every breath held, waiting for words that would carve the future of Caladan.

“I, Leto Atreides, Duke of Caladan,” the attorney read, his tone measured, “being of sound mind, do hereby declare this my last will and testament. To my son, Paul Atreides, I bequeath the ducal title and stewardship of the planet Caladan, with all rights, privileges, and responsibilities therein.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd—Paul was the rightful heir, the natural choice. Gurney’s shoulders eased slightly, a flicker of relief that Leto’s legacy would pass to his son. But the attorney’s face darkened, his voice dropping into a graver cadence.

“However,” he said, pausing as the room stilled, “under Caladan’s laws of succession, an illegitimate child is ineligible to inherit the ducal title directly. Yet, in light of exceptional circumstances and the lawful marriage of the Duke’s son to a noble-born spouse, it is Gurney Halleck, his husband, who shall assume the title and responsibilities of Duke of Caladan.”

The words hit Gurney like a blast. The room erupted in a chaos of whispers, gasps, and hissed objections. Nobles leaned toward each other, voices sharp with disbelief or outrage. Gurney stood frozen, the weight of the pronouncement crushing him. Duke of Caladan? The title felt like a chain, heavy and unwanted, binding him to a role he’d never sought. His eyes darted to Paul, desperate for a sign—any sign—of what this meant for them. But Paul’s face was unreadable, his jaw tight, his gaze fixed on the attorney as if Gurney didn’t exist.

Before Gurney could process, Lady Jessica rose, her presence commanding the room’s attention. Her eyes burned with a fury that made Gurney’s blood run cold. “Now you see who profits from my husband’s death,” she declared, her voice a honed blade, cutting through the murmurs. 

The accusation landed like a blow, the room gasping as one. Paul’s head snapped up, eyes wide with shock, locking onto his mother. Jessica’s voice dropped to a lethal whisper, each word deliberate, slicing. “Before his death, Leto drank wine from Halleck’s vineyard. A barrel sent under your personal seal, Gurney.”

Gurney’s breath stopped, his mind reeling. The implication was a knife to his gut, twisting deeper with every syllable.

“That barrel has been tested,” Jessica continued, her tone unrelenting. “We found Tleilaxu poison—undetectable by snoopers, slow-acting, masked by the wine’s richness.”

The hall seemed to contract, the air thick with suspicion. A fork clinked against a plate. A sharp breath hissed nearby. The weight of every stare bore down on Gurney—nobles shifting, chairs scraping, eyes narrowing. His stomach churned, ice spreading through his veins. Poison? From his vineyard? The idea was absurd, yet Jessica’s certainty made it real, a betrayal he couldn’t fathom.

“I accuse you, Gurney Halleck,” she said, her voice ringing out, filling every corner of the hall, “of poisoning Duke Leto Atreides.”

Two guards stepped forward, hands on their blades, moving to flank him. Gurney’s jaw clenched, his body tensing as anger and betrayal surged, threatening to drown him. He stood taller, defiance burning in his chest, refusing to cower under the weight of her words.

Paul shot to his feet, nostrils flaring, his voice thundering through the hall. “Hold!” he commanded, silencing the crowd’s murmurs. “You will not touch my husband, Mother, until you show proof—real proof—of his guilt.”

Jessica’s composure faltered, her eyes flashing with frustration, disbelief etched into her features. “Paul, this man isn’t who you think—”

Paul cut her off, his voice cold, unyielding. “Then use your Truthsay, Mother. Let the ritual judge him.”

The room froze, every eye on Jessica. She blinked, caught off guard by the challenge, her Bene Gesserit poise wavering. Gurney’s mind raced, his heart pounding like a war drum. The nobles’ gazes pinned him—some curious, some accusing, all heavy. He looked to Paul, searching for a crack in his stoic mask. For a fleeting moment, he saw it—a flicker in Paul’s eyes, doubt or trust, he couldn’t tell. It was enough to anchor him, to steady the storm inside.

“Yes,” Gurney said, voice low but firm, cutting through the silence. “I’ll face your Truthsay. Test me.”

He held Paul’s gaze, willing him to see the truth—his truth. The memory of last night lingered, a raw wound between them, but Gurney clung to the hope that Paul’s challenge meant something. That somewhere, beneath the grief and anger, a thread of belief remained. He would face the ritual, bare his soul, and pray it was enough to mend what had been broken.

Chapter Text

The pain in his temples was unbearable, throbbing through his skull as though his head were trapped inside a tolling bell. Every step he took reverberated against the ache; the walls, those familiar walls of his childhood, offered no comfort now.

He had never thought Caladan’s halls could feel alien. Once they had been sanctuary, safety, the domain of his father’s presence. Now they mocked him with their chill silence.

Paul walked in the middle, his mother’s steps sharp and unyielding before him, Gurney’s presence a heavy shadow at his side. Gurney had not spoken more than a handful of words since the decision was made. The silence stretched taut between them. Paul insisted that the test be performed with as few witnesses as possible. “Let’s go to the library,” he said, forcing the words through his numb lips. He would not allow the entire castle to watch. His husband did not need to be humiliated before a crowd.

Only as they reached the round-carved doors of the library did he realize the choice had not been deliberate at all. This room had simply risen in his mind like an echo of comfort from another life. He remembered evenings there, bent over books with his father’s hand resting on his shoulder, the scent of dust and old paper in the air. But the room that greeted him now was not the one of his memory.

He had forgotten its scale, its gloom. The soaring shelves and cavernous shadows were nothing like the small, cozy library at the Halleck manor. Here there was no warmth. Only vastness, emptiness, and a chill that bit deeper than the stone underfoot. But it was too late to change his mind.

As soon as the heavy door slammed shut behind their backs, Paul spun on his heel, unwilling to give his mother even a moment to gather her poise or frame her questions. If he let her set the pace, she would dominate the room the way she always had, with that unyielding presence of hers, with the weight of Bene Gesserit discipline behind every breath.

“Go ahead,” he barked, the sharpness of his voice cracking through the vast silence of the library, “ask him, and we will be done with it.” He made no attempt to soften the anger dripping from each word. He felt Gurney’s hand brush against his elbow—gentle, steady, a wordless plea for him to temper himself—but it did little to soothe him. The tenderness of that touch only sharpened the edge of his frustration, because it reminded him that Gurney, of all people, did not deserve this ordeal.

Jessica’s eyes were heavy upon him, unflinching, carrying the judgment of Bene Gesserit all at once. Then, deliberately, she shifted her gaze to Gurney, narrowing it, her chin lifting in command.

“Sit,” she said, with a curt jerk of her head toward the carved chair that waited in the center of the room.

Paul’s temper flared hotter. “Gurney is going to be the Duke of Caladan by law,” he said evenly, though the calmness of his tone was strained, brittle. “Show him respect.”

“We’ll see,” Jessica snarled, the words carrying venom, and Paul felt a cold thread of dread twist in his chest.

When Gurney obeyed and lowered himself into the chair, Paul moved behind him, his hand resting firmly on his husband’s broad shoulder. If he could not prevent the questioning, then at least he could anchor him with his touch. At least Gurney would know he was not facing this alone.

“Tell me only the truth, Gurney Halleck,” Jessica said, unleashing the Voice without warning. The resonance cracked through the air, sharp and merciless, a lash across the soul. “Did you kill the Duke Leto Atreides?”

The Voice struck like a whip. Paul felt Gurney’s entire body stiffen under his palm, the shoulder muscles hardening to stone. His stomach turned with the icy dread of it. He was glad he couldn't see Gurney's eyes, fearing the same glassy, hollowed look that the Voice carved into men.

“No.” The word came flat, mechanical, dead of all inflection.

Paul’s hand tightened. Why did it have to be like this? Why must his husband endure this humiliation?

“Did you know about the Duke’s will?”

Again the Voice lashed, making the air tremble with invisible force. Again the same lifeless reply: “No.”

Jessica’s nostrils flared, her composure fraying. Dissatisfaction gleamed in her eyes; she wanted more, and Paul felt rage coil within him like a striking serpent.

“Did you—”

“ENOUGH!”

His own Voice rang out, sharp as steel, the command vibrating through the shelves and vaulted ceiling. Jessica faltered, stumbling back, caught off guard.

“Don’t you see he’s innocent?!” Paul’s shout tore through the heavy air. “Stop torturing him!”

Jessica straightened slowly, her breath unsteady, but her gaze was unbroken. “I’m not done, Paul.” Her attention slid back to Gurney, cold and piercing. “Do you want to be the Duke of Caladan?”

“No,” came the dull, forced reply.

Jessica’s face twisted, her composure breaking into a snarl. “Then what do you want from my family?!” The surge of her Voice sent a ripple of power crawling over Paul’s skin, raising the hair on his neck.

“I…want…to be with…my husband,” Gurney forced out, straining each word as though wrestling it past invisible chains.

“Why?!” Jessica’s bark cracked like thunder. “It was a marriage of convenience!”

“For god’s sake, mother—” Paul began, fury boiling, but Gurney’s next words cut through everything, silencing him mid-breath.

“Because I…love…him.”

The syllables dragged out, raw and weighted, and Paul’s mind reeled, the world stalling around him.

Jessica collapsed heavily into the nearest chair, her body folding into it, and Paul, still standing rigidly behind Gurney's chair, did not even notice how tight his grip on the man’s shoulder had become. It did not matter—he could not let go, not when everything seemed to tremble around him as though one careless movement would break the fragile balance they all were trying to maintain.

His mother’s test had shaken him, but what unsettled him far more was the echo of Gurney’s confession still reverberating in his skull. Love. The memory of last night crashed into him without mercy—the heat of Gurney’s mouth on his skin, the calloused roughness of Gurney’s hands, the hunger, the desperation, the brutality of the whole thing— Paul had not dared imagine those rough touches meant anything but lust — a man determined to devour the boy he had been denied for so long.

He’d felt that hunger in people's eyes before — a ravenous gaze that tried to consume him, piece by piece. Gurney was no different, Paul had been certain of that; Gurney had wanted to prove possession in the most primal way. And last night, as Paul had surrendered to those hands, to that rough, aching need, he had believed it was nothing more complicated than that — sex, lust, ownership. Yet now, with the word still clinging to the air, Paul’s certainty wavered.

Heat flushed his face at the memory, shame mingling with confusion. This was not the place for such thoughts, not with Jessica watching, not with Gurney struggling to stand beneath his mother’s scrutiny.

“Are you satisfied, mother?” Paul asked at last, his voice sharpened to a cold edge, though inside him everything was chaos. His words hung between them as as Gurney rose, his movement unsteady, a visible weakness that made Paul’s heart lurch, though he forced himself to remain composed, his hand still anchored protectively on the man’s shoulder.

Gurney rose, his movement unsteady, a visible weakness that made Paul’s heart lurch, though he forced himself to remain composed, his hand still anchored protectively on the man’s shoulder.

“I know he’s hiding something,” Jessica replied, her tone still laced with suspicion.

“I’m not hiding anything, my lady,” Gurney said quietly, and Paul heard the weariness, the threadbare patience, the exhaustion of a man already stripped raw. “Test me if—”

“No more tests,” Paul cut in firmly, his voice rising, gaining momentum with each word, rage surging through him like a tide. “You’re so eager to wield your Bene Gesserit skills now, but where were you when Father drank the poisoned wine? Where was your perfect training then?”

“Paul, please don’t—” Gurney began, his tone not rebuke but plea, a hand half-raised as if to hold him back, yet Paul could not bite down on the bitterness spilling out of him.

“No, Gurney, I want her to listen now,” Paul snapped, and his voice cracked with the sheer force of what he had been holding in for far too long.

Jessica’s head rose slowly, and Paul saw her eyes gleaming, the sheen of unshed tears threatening to fall, and for a heartbeat he faltered, for a heartbeat he was her son again, but he forced himself forward, his purpose sharper than his pity.

“Now you see for yourself that it isn’t his fault,” he said, his words tumbling out fast, relentless. “So let us go, to the main hall, in front of the attorney, in front of the household, and announce to them all that Gurney has told you the truth, that he is innocent of my father’s death, and that from this moment onward he is, by law and by your acknowledgement, the one and only Duke of Caladan.”

His chest heaved as the words left him, and he felt the silence they created pressing down heavily on them all.

As they made their way down the long corridor, Paul kept his grip firm on Gurney’s elbow, guiding him steadily as though afraid that, without his touch, the man might slip away into the shadows that still seemed to gather around him. Ahead of them, Jessica walked in silence, her posture as rigid as carved marble, but there was something strained in the way her shoulders hunched forward, as if the weight of the truth—or the admission of defeat—had finally pressed her down.

“You don’t have to be that harsh with your mother,” Gurney murmured, his voice pitched so low that it brushed against Paul’s ear. “She’s grieving.”

“I’m grieving too,” Paul replied. “She didn’t have to humiliate you in front of the guests. Not with the Voice, not when you’ve already proven your loyalty a thousand times.”

“I’ve survived worse,” Gurney answered with that half-smile, weary but stubborn, a smile that spoke of too many scars.

“Well, you weren’t my husband at that time,” Paul said, his lips twitching in a brief attempt at levity, masking something raw and unspoken that burned just beneath his words.

Gurney’s brow furrowed, and he muttered with that familiar gruffness, “I’m not sure you’d even been born at that time.”

Paul almost laughed, almost let the banter dissolve the tightness that coiled in his chest, but the moment passed too quickly. The guardians were already pulling open the heavy doors before them, and the draft of cool air from the dining hall rushed out to meet them.

The voices within, buzzing with speculation and hushed whispers, faltered into silence the moment the trio entered. Dozens of eyes fixed upon them—all waiting to seize upon any flicker of weakness. Paul straightened his back and lifted his chin, projecting a composure he did not fully feel, tightening his hold on Gurney’s arm as if to anchor them both.

The attorney stepped forward, his face pale with anticipation. “What did the Truthsay reveal, my lady?” His words fell into the silence like stones into water, and every ripple seemed to reach the farthest corners of the hall.

Jessica did not falter, though her voice was clipped and stiff, stripped of any warmth. “Gurney Halleck is not the one to blame for the Duke’s death.”

A murmur swept through the room, hushed but urgent, a collective exhale of suspicion and disbelief, voices overlapping: If not him, then who? Someone must have… Who could have poisoned the wine…

Paul felt the weight of every gaze pressing against him like the point of a blade. Slowly, deliberately, he released Gurney’s arm and stepped forward, placing himself squarely in the center of the hall, where all could see and hear. His heart hammered in his chest, but his voice rang out clear and commanding, cutting through the murmurs like steel.

“This,” he declared, his gaze sweeping across the assembled faces, “this is what I will find out. Ladies and gentlemen, I swear to you—I will uncover the one truly responsible for my father’s death. And when I do, there will be no excuse that will shield them from justice.”

***

The ceremony of investiture loomed over tomorrow, but Paul had little interest in rehearsing speeches or enduring the endless stream of ritual and protocol. That could be left to the attorney, who was more than eager to polish every legal phrase, and to the housekeeper, who fussed with banners and seating arrangements. Paul had no patience for any of it. What mattered to him now was the truth—the hand that had set poison on his father’s lips.

The wine barrel stood in the cellar squat and heavy, its once-proud seal fractured. Paul stared at it, as if the carved lines in the wood might open to reveal the face of the traitor behind it.

“The seal is mine,” Gurney said the moment his eyes fell on the broken mark, his voice low, almost hollow. He touched the cracked impression with a calloused finger, tracing it as if searching for proof of forgery. “Do you recognize it?”

Paul nodded grimly. He didn’t need to study it—the image was etched deep in his memory. He had spent long hours over those very barrels, laboring with his mind and body until every drop of poison was transmuted, his concentration honed into steel. The memory of that work came back to him now, sharp and bitter.
“This is from our batch for the Landsraad summit,” he said, his tone clipped, weighted with accusation though not aimed at Gurney.

“Exactly.” Gurney’s jaw tightened. “One of the poisoned barrels was sent here.”

After the Kaitain incident, they had sent inquiries to the Guild, demanding access logs, names of dockhands, anyone who might have brushed against the shipment. In return they received only bland, evasive letters stamped with the Guild’s insignia, polished nonsense about neutrality and confidentiality.

“Then we’re fucked,” Paul muttered, his composure slipping for a moment, his hand tightening into a fist against his thigh. “The Guild isn’t going to share anything useful.”

Gurney scratched at his beard thoughtfully, eyes never leaving the barrel. “If they shipped one barrel here, it’ll be easier to trace.”

Paul turned his gaze to him, scepticism sharp in his features. “Is it though? Do you have any idea how much wine moves through the docks each day? Rivers of it. A single barrel could vanish in the flood.”

“Maybe so,” Gurney said evenly, “but a single barrel also stands out. Wine is shipped in bulk. One separate unit, pulled aside, marked differently—someone noticed it. Someone had to load it. Someone had to check the seal.” His voice hardened. “And someone knew to whom it belonged.”

Paul tilted his head, considering the logic. As much as his frustration demanded he dismiss it, Gurney’s words had weight.
“That… actually makes sense,” Paul admitted at last, though reluctantly. He ran his fingers across the splintered edge of the broken seal, feeling how rough it was beneath his skin. Somewhere, hidden behind layers of silence and bureaucracy, lay the thread that would unravel the truth.

After Gurney left to receive his instructions for tomorrow’s ceremony, Paul made his way to his father’s office, where he began sifting through the papers piled on the desk. He knew Leto insisted on handling all the paperwork himself, struggling constantly to make ends meet. The documents blurred before his eyes, the neat columns of numbers and contracts smearing into indistinct black strokes under the faint glow of the lamp. The room still smelled faintly of ink and that quiet trace of seaweed that seemed to cling to everything in this fortress. He told himself he was working, that he was making sense of what Leto had left behind, but in truth he was only burying himself in the papers so he didn’t have to feel the ache of loss pressing too close. Hours must have passed, unnoticed, for when the knock came at the door he lifted his head as though surfacing from deep water.

“Come in,” he said, trying not to sound as weary as he felt.

The door opened, and there was Gurney, carrying a tray with food balanced in his hands. The sight of him immediately cut through the fog of fatigue.

“They let you go already?” Paul asked, genuinely startled. His voice came out hoarse.

“It’s almost midnight, Paul. Of course they let me go.”

Paul blinked toward the tall window and saw the dark night pressed against the glass, the faint reflection of himself in the lamplight. A strange unease tightened his chest—how much time had slipped by without him noticing?

“You missed dinner,” Gurney continued gently, setting the tray down before him. “I asked them to heat something up for you.”

“I’m not…” Paul began to protest, but the smell rose in warm, savory waves, stirring his stomach with sudden hunger. He sighed and reached for the fork. “Fine.”

Gurney’s presence, steady and familiar, was a comfort in itself. As Paul ate, the conversation returned to the poisoned barrel, circling again the same frustrating paths—Guild secrecy, his mother’s silence, the gaps they could not fill. Yet beneath it all, Paul’s attention kept snagging not on the words but on the man himself: the quiet way Gurney leaned back in the chair, the soft curve of his smile, the rasp of his voice. It shouldn’t have mattered so much, that smile. But Paul felt the warmth of it all the way down to his chest, and when he laughed in return, it was too easy, too natural, too intimate. His laugh broke into a yawn, and Gurney, still smiling, leaned forward.

“Let’s go to sleep. The ceremony is early in the morning.”

The words struck Paul in a way they shouldn’t have. Sleep, yes — but together? His body remembered the last night too vividly, the ache still lingering in him, not unpleasant, and the thought of repeating it—of yielding again, of being touched, held, taken — sent a hot, sharp pang through his lower belly. He put down the mug of mulled wine with deliberate care, afraid that his own hands might betray him.

“I’m…” he began, dropping his gaze.

And Gurney, with that immediate instinct of his, rushed in. “Oh god, Paul, I didn’t mean—I’m so sorry. You can sleep in our bedroom, and I found another room for myself, it’s—”

Paul cut him off with a quiet, almost amused, “Gurney, stop.” He looked up finally, catching the uncharacteristic fluster written across the older man’s face, and something about it — something so vulnerable in someone usually so steady — made Paul want to reach for him. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Don’t forget, this is my childhood home. I can find a place to sleep, believe me. What this castle has plenty of are empty rooms.” He smiled, soft but edged with the ache of memory.

Gurney accepted it with a reluctant nod, still visibly uneasy. He rose from his chair, his body casting a long shadow across the floor. He reached the door, but there he paused, turning to Paul again, voice lower, hesitant. “But… do you want to sleep in an empty room?”

Paul’s breath caught, his heartbeat picked up in a fast, uneven rhythm. He should have thought of the right answer, something clever and deflecting—but his truth slipped free before reason could shield it.

“I don’t,” he said.

As they walked together down the corridor, their shoulders brushed now and then, and instead of pulling away or pretending the contact had not happened, Paul let it linger. It was strange to him how natural it felt, this easy companionship as they were returning to their bedroom side by side. It gave him an odd sense of comfort, as though it was something he could easily grow used to, something he could imagine repeating every night.

An exhaustion beyond measure had settled deep into his bones, dulling the edges of his thoughts, and by the time they reached the bedroom, Paul scarcely possessed the strength for his nightly rituals. He brushed his teeth lazily, splashed a little water on his face, and finally allowed himself to collapse onto the bed, the mattress sighing beneath his weight. A low groan escaped him unbidden — not of pain, but of pleasure at the sheer relief of lying down. For a fleeting instant, his mind caught on the memory of what had happened between these same sheets the previous night — but even that was blurred by the fog of exhaustion, his body overriding his thoughts, dragging him toward sleep.

He was already half-dreaming when he heard the soft sound of footsteps and the quiet shifting of fabric as Gurney returned from the bathroom. Paul kept his eyes closed until the mattress dipped at the far end. Then Gurney’s voice came, gentle, almost tentative, as though he feared disturbing him.

“Are you sleeping?”

“Yeah,” Paul murmured, his words thick and slurred.

“Do you mind if I read a little?”

The question pierced the haze, and Paul forced one eye open, the image of Gurney blurred in the dim light. “Nah,” he managed, though curiosity tugged at him. He lifted his head just a fraction from the pillow, studying him. “You got reading glasses?”

There was a quiet pause, and then Gurney chuckled, low and self-conscious. “Why do you sound so surprised? I’m an old man.”

Paul let his head fall back onto the pillow, a lazy grin curving his lips. “Yes, sure,” he mumbled, letting his voice drop into something softer, almost playful. “Last night it didn’t feel like you were an old man.”

He didn’t have to look to know Gurney was clearing his throat, fumbling for composure; the sound was enough, and it only deepened Paul’s smile. There was a quiet satisfaction in knowing he could disarm Gurney so easily, that he could still be embarrassed, still flustered by the weight of a single remark.

“Good night, husband,” Paul added, deliberately gentle now, savoring the intimacy of the word as he let it hang between them.

There was a stillness before the reply came, hushed, steady, and tinged with something Paul could not name.

“Good night, Paul.”

***

Though Paul was afraid Jessica would find a way to ruin the ceremony, everything went alarmingly quiet, as though she had decided—for today at least—to surrender to necessity. She stood beside them, looking stern and tight-lipped, as though carved from stone. Yet she spoke the words required, and when she lifted the ducal chain and set it upon Gurney’s head, her hands did not tremble. The ritual passed with solemn efficiency, stripped of warmth, but intact.

Paul stood at his husband’s side, watching Gurney’s shoulders take on the weight of the chain, the final seal that declared him Duke of Caladan. And yet, Paul found it exceptionally difficult to pay attention to the words echoing in the vaulted chamber, or to the stiff applause that followed. His mind was elsewhere—or, if he was honest with himself, it was stuck on the memory of this morning.

The moment he woke and realized that sometime in the night he and Gurney had rolled together, their bodies molding in the most instinctive way, arms tangled, legs hooked. Paul had opened his eyes to find Gurney’s breath warm against his temple, the solid bulk of him pressed along his side. His own body had already betrayed him, hard and aching, reacting to that intimacy before he even had time to think. He had untangled himself with something close to panic, retreating to the bathroom, though he knew Gurney had noticed. It was impossible not to.

We had sex, for god’s sake, Paul thought, biting at his lower lip now as the attorney droned on. He’s my husband. We’re supposed to share a bed. We’re supposed to wake up next to each other. This shouldn’t make me nervous. And yet it did. More than nervous—it made his chest tight with a strange excitement.

“My lord Paul,” the attorney called, sharp enough to make Paul startle. He hadn’t heard a single word.

Gurney turned his head a little, his voice a low rumble against Paul’s ear. “Say, ‘yes, I do.’”

“Yes, I do,” Paul blurted without hesitation, praying he hadn’t just bound himself to something catastrophic. Gurney’s broad hand slid into his, steady, warm, grounding. Paul exhaled, realizing how much he leaned on that touch. I would be such a lousy duke, he thought bitterly, squeezing Gurney’s hand back.

“What did he ask?” he whispered.

“If you’d like to hang our portraits in the Hall of Portraits,” Gurney murmured back.

Relief flooded Paul. “Oh, thank god, yes, I very much like that.”

“I thought so,” Gurney said, smiling.

Paul looked at him then, truly looked—at the creases radiating from the corners of his warm brown eyes, at the sun-darkened skin crossed by a pale scar, at the salt-and-pepper beard: the boy in the portrait Paul had found seemed almost a stranger compared to this man. But, disturbingly, beautifully, the present Gurney seemed infinitely more handsome.

After the ceremony, when the applause and murmurs of the hall had faded and the last bowing guest was escorted away, Paul found himself once more in the Duke’s office. He sat at the long table with Gurney beside him, Jessica across, and the family attorney leaning forward, his pen poised. The suspensor lamp light flickered against the polished surface, throwing shifting shadows onto the walls. Paul folded his hands and spoke with deliberate calm.

“My mother,” he said, voice steady, “will have the full stewardship of Caladan. From this moment, she is its sole ruler.”

Jessica’s eyes widened, a sharp intake of breath betraying her surprise. For a fleeting second, Paul thought he saw suspicion flash across her face before she smoothed it over with practiced composure.

“I thought…” she said, uncertain, her voice tight as a bowstring. “I thought you’d want the planet for yourself.”

Paul held her gaze, unflinching. “We have Chusuk, Mother. We don’t need another planet.” He said it almost evenly, “but before we leave, I need to investigate Father’s death.”

That made Jessica’s shoulders stiffen. She drew herself up, the mask of calm sliding back into place. “What do you need?” she asked, but there was a trace of strain in her voice.

Paul clasped his hands tighter. “We couldn’t find any shipping documents for the poisoned wine barrel. How did it get to the castle?”

Jessica’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I wasn’t able to trace it either,” she admitted. “But I know for certain it didn’t pass through Cala City Spaceport.”

Paul frowned. “Did you check the Atreides Landing?” he pressed.

“I intended to visit it after the funeral,” she said. “My guess is the barrel was brought by a private space vessel. And then—someone gave it to Leto, perhaps as a gift. It must have been someone he trusted.”

Paul’s stomach tightened at her phrasing. “Why do you think so?” he asked carefully, studying every flicker in her eyes.

Her reply came with icy precision. “I interrogated the servants under Truthsay. They swore Leto ordered them to carry the barrel from his yacht into the cellars. He met someone while he was out at sea.”

“Then we need to find that someone,” Paul said firmly, his voice cutting through the heavy quiet. He turned to Gurney, who had been watching the exchange in silence, every line of his scarred face taut with focus.

Somewhere in Caladan’s waters, a murderer his father trusted was lying in wait. And Paul intended to drag them into the light.

***

The flight to the Atreides Landing took less than an hour, the ‘thopter gliding over the glittering sea. Unlike the cooler, damp lands around Castle Caladan, the southern continent always struck Paul as almost foreign: golden plains of ripening grain, groves of citrus trees heavy with fruit, and the whitewashed roofs of fishing towns baking beneath a brilliant, cloudless sky. The air grew warmer as they descended, and by the time they stepped out of the craft onto the spaceport grounds, Paul could feel the heat pressing against his skin.

The Atreides Landing was not a large facility by any means. It had been built primarily as an export hub for the planet’s famed sparkling wine, rice, and melons; warehouses with broad wooden doors faced the docks where cargo was loaded onto sleek transports. Yet for all its modest scale, it felt bustling, alive with stevedores, merchants, and pilots moving under the bright sun. Paul scanned the scene with narrowed eyes, trying to imagine a single poisoned barrel slipping unnoticed into the steady stream of trade.

Inside the spaceport office they were met by Harold, an old worker whose skin was darkened from years of living on this sunny continent, his hair bleached nearly white by salt air. He spoke in a rasping, nasal tone that grated against Paul’s tense nerves.

“We work as a transport hub to export our goods, my lords,” Harold screeched, his back stooped. “It’s rarely we see a civil spacecraft. I’m sure I would remember such an occasion.”

Paul leaned forward, refusing to let the disappointment show. “We’re looking for a single wine barrel, Mr. Harold. Could it be brought here as the personal baggage of some of the pilots?”

“Ah! Easily, my lord, easily,” the old man said, waving his hand as though the question were trivial. “They bring all kinds of things from all over the galaxy! Animals, slaves, strange foods. But we don’t keep logs of their personal baggage.”

Paul tightened his jaw. He hated the way every trail seemed to dissolve into fog the moment he tried to grasp it. “Do you think the customs officers might remember something as odd as a wine barrel?” he pressed, his tone sharper than he intended.

Old Harold scratched the back of his neck, his expression apologetic. “I’m not sure they would think a barrel of Halleck’s wine is odd, my lord. Your wine, sir, is quite popular here.” He glanced toward Gurney as if hoping for sympathy.

Paul’s frustration mounted. He was about to insist they summon the officers when he felt Gurney’s steady hand brush his elbow. It was a subtle touch, but one that carried weight, pulling him back from the edge of losing patience.

“Wait,” Gurney said quietly, his voice carrying that deliberate gravity that made people listen. “Harold, have any of your pilots disappeared lately?”

The old man hesitated, squinting against the bright sun spilling through the office window. “Ah… in fact, there was a man who suddenly disappeared not long ago, but he wasn’t one of our pilots.”

Paul’s heart began to pound in his ears, his breath catching. “Who was he?”

“He said he came to inspect the Paradan melon farms, because his employer was considering buying them. We get plenty of such visitors here,” Harold added, shrugging. “Merchants, speculators, buyers looking to expand. Always sniffing around the melon farms or the sea-creature processing plants.”

Paul cut him off. “I know. But that means he would have had to meet with my family. My father kept a tight grip on all business relations that affected the Caladan economy. If he came with that pretext, my father must have met him.”

“And he did,” Harold said after a moment, lowering his voice as though suddenly aware of the weight of his words. “Lord Leto came here more than once to speak with the man. After that, it was Chadh—that was his name—who took a wingboat in the port and sailed to the castle.”

Paul’s mouth went dry. He felt the heat of the southern sun press heavier on his shoulders. “You let a stranger sail to the castle just like that?” His voice cracked sharp, betraying his mounting fury.

“He had the Duke’s permit—on paper!” Harold protested, both hands rising as if warding off Paul’s anger. “Signed and sealed! How could I refuse him?”

Paul’s thoughts raced. A forged seal? Or had his father truly given this man leave? If so, what hold had Chadh possessed over the Duke of Caladan?

“Show us what wingboat he took,” Gurney said at last, his voice firm.

On the coast of the Southern Continent, the sea breathed warmth, the tide rolling in with lazy foam across a bright beach that stretched for miles under a fading sky. Trees swayed in the evening breeze, and the harbor glittered with moored wingboats and leisure yachts, their white hulls catching the last gold of the sun. Paul thought it looked less like a working port and more like a painter’s vision of paradise. Yet for him, there was no beauty left untainted.

Harold led them down the long moor. At the far end, where the sand began again beyond the wooden planks, a single wingboat floated, gently rocking with the rhythm of the tide. It looked unremarkable, perhaps even elegant in its simplicity—its sails furled, its deck swept clean, a vessel that had carried someone across these same waters not long ago.

“Here it is,” Harold croaked, gesturing with one hand. “Chadh took this one.”

Paul climbed on board after Gurney, his boots clicking against the deck. He half expected—half hoped—that he might sense something of that Chadh here: some disturbance in the air, a wrongness that would betray him. But the wingboat was like every other, bare of personality, as though the sea itself had swallowed any trace of the intruder. They searched in silence, opening the cabin door to reveal nothing more than generic sailor’s gear, sea charts, and some sailing clothes. Nothing to hold, nothing to follow, no sign of the man who had dared set foot on his Caladan shores.

By the time they came back on deck, the sun was sinking low, spilling molten colors across the horizon. The water shimmered in bands of violet, rose, and burning orange. For a moment Paul stood still, staring at it, his throat tightening at the sheer indifference of the sea. How could the world look so enchanted, when his own heart was hollow with loss?

“This is so beautiful,” Gurney said softly, standing at the bow. The wind carried his words across the deck. “Your planet is beautiful, Paul.”

Paul dragged his gaze from the waves and joined him. “Legally, it’s now your planet,” he said.

Gurney chuckled at that, but when he turned, the smile faded as quickly as it had come. His eyes lingered on Paul, steady and searching. “We’ll find him,” Gurney said, voice low, almost a vow. “I’ll bring a team of investigators from Chusuk if I must—they’ll rake through the whole spaceport, overturn every stone. One way or another, we’ll trace him.”

Paul shook his head. “But it won’t bring my father back.” The words tasted bitter.

“No,” Gurney admitted, his voice roughening. “It won’t bring him back. But the man responsible will be brought to justice. I would pay dearly to see the Harkonnens punished for what they’ve done to my family—for what they’ve done to me.”

The pain vibrating in his tone startled Paul, cutting deeper than he expected. Without thinking, Paul reached for him, fingers brushing across Gurney’s hand before taking it firmly. “I’m sorry, Gurney.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, my boy.” The endearment slipped out of him as naturally as breathing. Gurney’s grip was warm, strong, steady, and Paul felt something shift in his chest. “It’s their fault. One day, they’ll pay for it.”

Paul stroked the back of Gurney’s hand absently, almost without realizing, until he caught himself smiling faintly. “You’ve never called me ‘my boy’ before.”

“I won’t again, if you don’t like it,” Gurney replied, squeezing his hand gently.

“No,” Paul murmured, his thoughts drifting far from the sea. “It just reminds me of someone. Someone long gone.”
Gurney’s expression softened, regret shadowing his features. “Then it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

To his own surprise, Paul grinned at him. Something about the awkward sincerity, the rough kindness, loosened a knot in his chest. Gurney grinned back, almost despite himself, and then his calloused hand rose, hesitating only a fraction before cradling Paul’s jaw. His palm was warm against Paul’s skin, and for an instant Paul could not breathe.

“Can I kiss you?” Gurney whispered, as though afraid the question itself might shatter the fragile moment.

Paul tilted his chin upward, eyes burning with something fiercer than grief. “How dare you ask permission?”

Before Gurney could react, Paul’s hands were on him, one fisting in the soft fabric of his shirt, the other cupping the strong, stubbled line of his jaw. He pulled, and Gurney, caught off guard by the ferocity, stumbled into him. Their lips crashed together — a desperate, hungry claiming and the unvarnished need that had been simmering between them for what felt like an eternity.

In that instant, Paul understood a profound and startling truth: he had been parched, a man dying of thirst in a desert of his own making, and Gurney was the only oasis in sight. He wasn’t just thirsty; he was ravenous. The careful composure, the ducal poise — it all shattered. He wanted Gurney here, now, on the weathered planks of this damned boat.

Gurney’s initial surprise melted under the onslaught, his own restraint igniting into a matching inferno. His large, calloused hands slid under Paul’s shirt, his palms rough and warm against the softer skin of Paul’s back. They bunched the fabric up, and a gust of sea wind licked across the exposed skin, raising goosebumps that were immediately soothed by the heat of Gurney’s touch. Paul moaned into the greedy, relentless pressure of Gurney’s mouth, the sound swallowed between them. He was already breathless, his entire body humming with a feverish heat. He ground his hips forward, pressing the hard, aching line of his erection against the bulge in Gurney’s trousers, a frantic, wordless plea. His fingers speared into the hair at the back of Gurney’s head, scratching his scalp, pulling him closer still, as if he could somehow erase the last millimeters of space that separated them.

“Paul!” Gurney finally managed to gasp, tearing his mouth away. His chest heaved, his voice a ragged, breathless thing. “Gods… not here. Let’s at least get to the cabin—”

Paul’s laugh was wild, edged with rebellion. “We’re lords of Caladan,” he said, licking his lips, the taste of Gurney lingering, salty and warm. “We fuck where we want.” He wanted it here, on the open deck, under the vast sky, consequences be damned. The idea of being caught, of eyes witnessing their raw hunger, only stoked the fire in his gut. He wanted it. He wanted the world to know to whom he belonged.

Gurney, ever the practical soldier even in the throes of passion, began to walk them backward, a stumbling, entangled dance toward the relative privacy of the cabin door. “Since when have you become so feral?” he asked, a mixture of awe and exasperation in his tone.

Paul’s answer was a soft, needy mewl against the column of Gurney’s throat. “Since you decided I was yours.” He punctuated the claim with his teeth, sinking them into the sun-leathered skin of Gurney’s neck. He savored the taste—salt, sweat, the pure, essential flavor of the man himself. Gurney groaned, a deep, visceral sound from the pit of his stomach, and his hand fisted tightly in Paul’s hair, not to pull him away, but to hold him there. The sharp, pleasant pain sent an electric shiver straight down Paul’s spine, coiling hotly in his gut.

Drunk on sensation, Paul let his hands fall from Gurney’s shoulders and slid down until his knees hit the sun-warmed deck. He pressed his face forward, nuzzling like a cat against the formidable hardness straining against Gurney’s trousers, feeling the potent weight of him through the fabric.

“Fuck!” Gurney cursed, his voice cracking, hoarse with want. His fingers tangled almost desperately in the dark curls, applying a pressure that was both a warning and an encouragement.

With trembling, eager fingers, Paul worked the fastenings of Gurney’s fly, his own breath catching as he finally freed him. The sight was magnificent. He was long, thick, powerfully veined, the dark, flushed head already glistening with evidence of his arousal. Paul’s mouth flooded with saliva, a primal, anticipatory reaction. He wrapped his fingers around the thick shaft, marveling at the heat and the steady, throbbing pulse he felt there. He leaned in, first placing a soft, worshipful kiss on the glistening slit, then using his tongue to slide the foreskin back, to tease and taste. Above him, Gurney’s sweet, guttural groans harmonized with the rhythmic splash of waves against the hull.

Then he took him into his mouth, and the world narrowed to this single, overwhelming point of connection. Gurney filled him, stretching his lips wide, a delicious ache building in his jaw. He bobbed his head, taking him deeper, until the blunt tip nudged insistently against the entrance to his throat. His eyes watered instantly, his breath hitched. He was suffocating, but he loved the loss of control, the complete surrender. Just as the need for air became a sharp demand, Gurney’s grip on his hair tightened and he pulled him back, his cock sliding free with a wet pop, leaving Paul’s mouth slick and dripping.

“Paul, what the hell?” Gurney panted, looking down at him with wide, stormy eyes, a war between concern and unbridled lust raging on his face.

Paul swallowed the bitter-salt taste of him, licking his lips with deliberate pleasure. He was utterly, completely in love with Gurney’s taste. He looked up, meeting his husband’s gaze, his own eyes blazing with defiant need.

“You have marital duties to perform, husband,” he said, his voice wrecked but steady. “So stop talking and fuck my throat.”

With a growl that was pure, unadulterated instinct Gurney surrendered. His hands cradled Paul’s head with a fierce possession, and he guided himself back into Paul’s mouth, but this time, there was no hesitation. He pushed forward with a single, powerful thrust that made Paul’s eyes screw shut, sending tears tracing paths down his cheeks.

The sounds were lewd, filthy; wet, sucking slurps that were drowned out only by Gurney’s ragged breathing and the cry of gulls overhead. Spit and pre-come trickled from the corners of Paul’s stretched lips, and a single droplet escaped to trace a path down his nostril. He could feel his throat convulsing, trying to accommodate the unrelenting, rhythmic invasion, but the urge to gag was a distant signal, easily ignored. He let go, melting into the sensation—the smell of Gurney’s skin, the salt-and-musk scent of his groin, the piercing pain in his scalp, the ecstatic pressure in his jaw. His mouth was stretched to its limit. All he could do was moan around the intrusion, a constant, vibrating hum of pleasure, while his own hand scrambled to palm himself through his trousers, the friction a pale, distant echo of the profound fulfillment of having his husband’s throbbing, blood-hot length pistoning deep into his throat.

Gurney’s rhythm began to stutter, his control fracturing. He gripped Paul’s head with both hands, holding him perfectly still for one final, deep, claiming thrust. Paul’s nose was buried in the coarse, dark hair at his base, drowning in his essential, musky scent. Then, with a choked, broken cry that was the most beautiful sound Paul had ever heard, Gurney came. Hot pulses of seed shot directly down his throat, and Gurney ground his hips in small, helpless circles against Paul’s face, milking his own climax, his body trembling with the force of it.

When he finally, gently, pulled away, Paul slumped forward, his body convulsing. He gagged, coughed, sucking in great, careful lungfuls of air through his nose—a reflex his mind overrode, an absurd desire not to waste a single drop of his husband. As he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, he glanced down: a dark, damp patch stained the front of his trousers; he’d spent himself untouched, from the sheer, overwhelming power of the act itself.

Gurney, still reeling, his breathing slowly returning to normal, reached out a shaking hand to cup Paul’s cheek. His thumb stroked away a stray tear track.

“Paul, that was…” he began, his voice thick with emotion, awe, and a dawning, protective concern. “You are… utterly insane.” A slow, weary, and deeply affectionate smile touched his lips. He glanced down at the obvious wet spot on Paul’s pants. “Come on. Let’s find you a new pair of trousers.”

They walked back into the cabin and searched through the clothes, finding something that would suit Paul.

“These should be fine,” Gurney said, handing him white canvas trousers, but the moment Paul took them, something slipped from the pocket and struck the floor with a sharp metallic clink.

Paul bent quickly and snatched it up. His fingers closed around cold metal, and when he uncurled his hand, he stared down at an old buckle, the design unmistakable—silver and platinum, heavy with the austere beauty of Caladan craft.

He had seen dozens like it in his childhood, lined up in velvet cases or gleaming at men’s belts during ceremonies, tokens his father bestowed upon those who had earned the Duke’s trust. But this one—this one froze the breath in Paul’s chest.

“What?” Gurney asked sharply, catching the look on his face. “Did you recognize it? Is it something important?”

Paul’s throat felt tight, the words reluctant to leave it. At last, he forced them out.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hushed but heavy with certainty. “My father gave this buckle to his best swordmaster.”

He lifted his gaze, meeting Gurney’s startled eyes, and finished, barely louder than a whisper:

“To Duncan Idaho.”

Chapter Text

The grove is a secret place, tucked low between the cliffs, hidden where the trees bend toward the sea. Paul should not be here—he knows it well enough—but his feet carry him down the path anyway, quick and careless, chasing the sound of gulls and the smell of salt in the wind. He pushes past the trees, the branches scratching at his sleeves, and then he sees them.

Steel flashes in the light. His father and Duncan Idaho stand in the clearing, blades crossing, striking, sliding apart with a sound like bells clashing. Paul freezes, his breath catching. They move so fast, faster than any practice duel he has ever been allowed to watch, faster than the guards who sometimes spar in the training yards. His father presses forward, blade sure and heavy, and Duncan turns with easy speed, a grin flickering across his face even as he blocks the next strike. Sunlight breaks through the leaves overhead, gold and sharp, catching on steel so that every movement dazzles his eyes.

Paul forgets to breathe. He is small still, not even tall enough to see clearly over the ferns, but he feels as though he has stumbled into a secret world. This is not for him — he knows that at once. He presses himself against a tree, not daring to move, afraid the moment will shatter if they notice him.

But then Duncan shifts, parries, and his eyes flick upward. Paul’s heart stumbles. Duncan straightens, grin breaking wide, warm and bright as always. His father follows his gaze, lowering his blade, bare chest heaving in the open shirt, surprise flashing across his face before it softens into a faint, breathless smile.

Paul feels caught, guilty for spying, yet no anger comes. Only Duncan’s laugh, soft and amused, and the quiet curve of his father’s smile — something in it lingering, warmer than mere approval. For a moment they seem to look at each other more than at him, a silence passing between them deep and meaningful. The light through the branches dazzles again, etching the sight into him forever: his father and Duncan together, blades flashing, shadows pushed back by a closeness he is too young to name.

“You said Duncan Idaho was dead.”

Gurney’s voice was low and rough, dragging Paul out of memory and back into the sharp sting of the sea air. The gulls wheeled overhead, their cries thin against the slow slap of tide against the wingboat’s hull, but it was that voice — stone grinding on stone — that pulled him fully into the present.

“Yes. I didn’t know my father kept it. I thought it had vanished with Duncan’s body.” Paul said, turning the buckle slowly in his palm. Sunlight scattered across its surface, silver and platinum lines catching quick flashes of light, the design as unmistakable as the man who had once worn it. He could see it as clearly as the day he last saw it — at Duncan’s waist, a bright gleam against the dark Atreides uniform as the swordmaster stood at attention. He remembered, too, the quiet ceremony when his father had fastened it there himself, voice deep and steady but softened with pride: For loyalty. For honor, and for service that asks no reward.

“Were they close?” Gurney asked carefully. His question carried an undercurrent Paul could not ignore, awakening the old image of his father and Duncan in the hidden grove, their eyes meeting in a silence Paul had never understood.

“I… I don’t know,” Paul said at last. “They were best friends.”

The words felt too thin. Duncan had never been only a swordmaster. He was laughter in rooms that too often filled with silence, warmth in the cold corridors of Castle Caladan, a man who could shift the weight of strategy and duty with a song or a smile. For the boy Paul had been, Duncan was protector and teacher, the rare presence who made the stone halls feel less like a fortress. For Leto, he had been trust made flesh — and perhaps something beyond trust, something private and unspoken. Could that hidden closeness have been turned into bait for betrayal?

“Do you think this Chadh used it to lure your father into the trap?” Gurney's question echoed what Paul was thinking. “If Duncan’s body was never recovered, someone might bring the buckle as proof that he still lived.”

“Father was smarter than that,” Paul said, fingers tightening around the metal until its edges pressed into his skin. “Duncan’s crew was ambushed on a mission. Every survivor swore the Harkonnens killed him, and father knew it too. An old buckle wouldn’t convince him Duncan was alive. That’s why I think it was left here for us — whoever did this wants our attention. He wants us to find him.”

Gurney’s face hardened with the grim tautness of a soldier bracing for a strike he could not yet see. His jaw set, shoulders angling subtly toward Paul, as though instinct already warned that he might need to shield his husband from an unseen blade.

Paul closed his fist around the buckle, the cold weight digging deeper, anchoring him. The wind whipped the sea into bright shards of spray, but Gurney’s eyes stayed fixed on him. Paul broke the silence, his voice low and sure despite the tremor beneath it. “And I think I know where we should start.”

***

The ornithopter skimmed above the gray-green sea, its wings a steady hum against the wind. Salt spray streaked the windshield, the scent of brine and kelp drifting into the cabin. Paul gripped the controls tightly, eyes fixed on the horizon, though his gaze was more inward than outward. His mind kept circling back — to the buckle still heavy in his pocket, to the way Duncan had once smiled to his father in that grove, to the way his father’s hand had lingered on Duncan’s shoulder in quiet, unspoken moments of trust. That memory, once a comfort, now twisted like a knife. 

By the time they reached the Western continent, the sun had sunk low, turning the sea to copper and smoke while the wind carried the first chill of night. Instead of descending, Paul kept the ’thopter circling the castle and the jagged cliffs below.

Gurney shifted in the co-pilot’s seat, broad shoulders taut beneath the harness. “We’ll be cutting it close if we keep circling,” he said, his voice raised just enough to cut through the engine’s thrum. “The landing platform’s ready.”

“Not yet.” Paul angled the craft into another slow sweep around the promontory. Below, the castle rose out of the cliffs, its dark stone slick with tidewater and gleaming faintly in the last light. “Something’s wrong.”

Gurney shot him a sidelong glance, measuring. “Your instincts again?”

Paul let the question hang. The breeze carried a faint vibration through the controls, a whisper beneath the steady beat of the wings, and he followed it with a pilot’s focus. He had learned long ago to trust the faint tug of prescience that came unbidden — small flashes that felt more like memory than vision. Today it thrummed in him like a half-heard note.

He banked the craft slightly, eyes sweeping the restless water. Waves shattered white against the rocks, then fell back into shadow. And there—near the base of the southern cliff, just beyond the last spit of foam—something moved against the tide.

A speck of pale plastic.

Paul narrowed his eyes. A dinghy. Small and low, rocking gently in a pocket of calmer water where it had no right to be. No sail, no signal light.

“Do you see it?” he asked.

Gurney leaned forward, squinting through the glass. “That’s no fisherman,” he muttered. “Nobody sane would moor there.”

Paul dropped altitude, throttling back until the ‘thopter’s wings beat more softly, the sea’s roar rising to meet them. The dinghy’s paint was scoured and peeling, but the hull looked sound. 

“You think it’s him,” Gurney offered, though his tone lacked conviction. “Chadh.”

Paul felt the heavy buckle in his pocket. “Too deliberate for chance,” he said. “Look how it sits — right where the current folds back on itself. He knew we’d see it from the air.”

Gurney gave a short, grim laugh. "He may come to regret that soon. You’re thinking we put down on the rocks?”

“There’s a shelf east of the cove,” Paul said. He felt the pull again, stronger now, a current of purpose beneath the ordinary sounds of sea and engine. “We land there. Whoever left that boat wanted a meeting.”

Gurney’s eyes narrowed, but he gave a single, sharp nod. Paul angled the craft toward the hidden shelf, the castle looming behind them like a watchful shadow. 

The ‘thopter skimmed low over the waves, its engines laboring against the salt wind that blew harder as they neared the cliffs. Paul kept the controls steady, eyes fixed on the dark line of rock rising ahead. He remembered now: the grove lay somewhere above, on the very crown of the cliff, a secret hollow that he had stumbled on by chance as a boy. Even then it had carried the feel of something sacred — a place meant only for those who knew where it was. Now, returning, he felt that silence waiting like a snare.

He set the ‘thopter down on a stretch of uneven grass, the small dinghy rocking with the tide below, the ocean roaring ceaselessly against stone. The spray drifted up in bursts, cold on the skin, and the air tasted of salt. Paul stepped out, boots sinking slightly into the damp earth, and tilted his head back to where the grove’s crown rose dark against the fading light.

“It’s up there,” he said, his voice lower than he intended.

Gurney scanned the cliff face, his scarred brow furrowed. “I don’t like it. High ground’s a hunter’s advantage.” His hand stayed close to the hilt at his belt, thumb resting on worn leather.

They climbed slowly, the path narrow and jagged, bordered by tufts of stubborn grass that bent in the wind. The grove was still there — ringed with dark trees, their branches swaying and creaking under the wind, the ground damp with moss. Beyond, the cliff dropped sheer into the crashing surf, the waves far below reduced to white spray against black rock. The place was as he remembered, but emptied of warmth. The silence was too complete, broken only by the low roar of the sea, and every shadow between the trees seemed to stretch longer than it should.

Paul’s hand slipped into his pocket, feeling the buckle cold against his palm.

“I think he’s here,” he whispered.

Gurney did not answer, but his hand gripped the pommel of his blade, scars tightening across his knuckles.

The grove held its breath. The wind pressed their branches together, whispering as though secrets passed from bough to bough, and each gust sent loose needles and leaves spiraling down to the damp earth. Paul stepped forward cautiously, the soles of his boots sinking into the moss that carpeted the ground, soft enough to swallow the sound of his steps.

Gurney followed at his shoulder, his presence heavy and watchful. He moved like a wolf stalking prey, his head tilted, listening for anything out of place. Every creak of the branches, every shift of shadow under the dimming light, made his jaw tighten.

Paul let his eyes roam across the grove. It was smaller than he remembered, but memory always had a way of enlarging what had once felt immense. He could almost see it — his father there, coat thrown aside, blade drawn, Duncan circling him with a grin.

“I came here once,” Paul said softly, as though the grove itself might overhear.

Gurney glanced at him, but did not interrupt.

“I was a boy,” Paul continued. “I followed paths I wasn’t meant to, chasing… I don’t remember what. A fox, or a lynx. Or perhaps I only wanted to run until the teachers and the servants couldn’t find me.” His hand slipped absently to the buckle in his pocket, rubbing against its edges. “I found them here. My father. And Duncan.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping the grove again, seeing both past and present layered over each other like shifting veils.

“They were sparring,” Paul said. “My father’s coat was off, and Duncan was laughing, teasing him. It felt…strange. I remember thinking I wasn’t supposed to be there, but neither of them scolded me.” He swallowed. “They only looked at me, smiling. Surprised. But… I didn’t understand why. At the time, I only thought it was sparring. Later… Mother asked me what I’d seen. I told her. I didn’t lie.” He drew in a long breath. “But maybe I didn’t understand it, not then.”

Gurney’s expression darkened, though his eyes stayed on the trees. “And now you think you do.”

Paul pressed his lips pressed. The air here was heavy with memory, almost unbearable, as if the grove itself still held the ghost of that moment.The ocean crashed below, steady and merciless.

Paul shivered, though not from the cold. “The grove was their hiding place,” he said quietly. “And Chadh knew it when he left Duncan’s buckle for us.”

Gurney kept his hand near his blade, eyes sweeping the crags with the restless precision of a seasoned hunter. Above, seabirds wheeled and cried, their sharp calls swallowed by the crash of waves. And then something stirred in the grove — no more than the soft rasp of leaves — but Paul’s breath snagged in his throat. 

A shape detached itself from the darkness between the trees, first only a suggestion of motion, then the solid outline of a man. The dying light slanted through the canopy, catching on a shoulder as the man stepped forward.

Paul’s heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt. He knew that walk before his mind allowed him the name.

Duncan.

Alive.

The world seemed to narrow to the grove where they stood, the sea’s distant roar fading until there was only the thud of his own pulse. Duncan Idaho emerged fully into the open. He looked older than memory and yet unchanged: the same dark hair, the same easy strength, the unshakable confidence that once made the cold corridors of Castle Caladan feel less like a prison.

Paul’s thoughts collided and scattered. Duncan was dead. He had been dead for years, his body lost on the faraway planet. And yet here he was, framed in fractured light, a tangible shock to Paul's every sense.

“Stay behind me,” Gurney murmured, never taking his eyes from the man before them. But Paul couldn’t move, breathless. Every memory of Duncan rose like a tide, the years between that boyhood and this moment collapsing into a single heartbeat.

“Duncan,” he whispered, the name breaking from him before he could think, a sound of disbelief and aching hope.

The figure stopped at the edge of the clearing, the shadows still clinging to his back. For a moment Duncan said nothing, only lifted his head, and Paul surged forward, heart hammering as his every instinct urged him to reach the man ahead, to bridge the impossible gap between memory and reality. “Duncan!” he cried, voice raw.

Gurney’s iron grip seized his shoulder, halting him midstep. Paul twisted, astonished. “Gurney—”

“It’s not Idaho, Paul,” Gurney said, voice low and steady, holding him back.

Paul’s eyes snapped back to the figure. “But it’s… him! It has to be!”

The man — Duncan? — stood motionless, watching them with a strange expression that made Paul’s chest tighten. The eyes were Duncan’s, yes, but empty somehow, cold, precise. The smile, the warmth, the laughter he remembered — all absent.

Paul’s fingers clenched around the buckle in his pocket, grounding him against the shock. “Then… who is it?”

Gurney exhaled, jaw tight. “It’s a ghola.”

The revelation struck him like a blow: a Tleilaxu clone, not the real Duncan, but a terrifyingly perfect replica. Hope, grief, and disbelief warred in his mind. He knew instantly that someone had engineered this moment, using the image of the man he mourned to draw him out.

Gurney’s eyes met his, steady. “Careful, Paul. It’s not the man you knew.”

Duncan smiled. “Paul Atreides,” he said slowly. “And the Old Wolf. I knew you would come.”

Paul’s heart twisted at the sound. For a moment he almost wanted to believe it was real — that Duncan had returned from death, loyal as ever. But reality was crueler than hope.

“Is that true?” Paul asked. “You’re not really Duncan?”

The ghola’s smile deepened, soft, almost sad. “No. My name is Chadh. They made me from him. They gave me his body and his skill. But not his heart. That part was already taken.”

Paul felt Gurney shift beside him, a low growl rumbling in his chest. “What game is this?”

Chadh did not flinch. “Not a game. A confession.”

His eyes — Duncan’s eyes, yet utterly foreign — locked onto Paul’s. “I was sent to your father two years ago. My mission was to weave myself into the Duke’s favor, to become what Idaho was to him.”

“My father would have never believed you,” Paul said, the words sharper than he intended. “He was too clever for that.”

“Oh, he was,” Chadh agreed, a faint, pleasant smile touching his lips as if savoring a private memory. “He nearly killed me when we first met. Vowed to send me back to my masters in a box.” To Paul’s astonishment, Chadh released a laugh that was painfully Duncan’s. “But you see, my lord, humans do not think with logic alone. Sometimes, they let the heart decide.”

“You killed the Duke!” Gurney growled, his grip on Paul’s shoulder tightening to a painful clamp. “And you will answer for it, along with your Harkonnen masters!”

Paul barely registered the threat or the pressure. His entire world had narrowed to the figure before him — this flawless weapon in a familiar skin. “What do you mean,” Paul asked, his voice quiet, “he let his heart decide?”

“Your father, my lord, found himself too attached to this face and body to ever truly damage it,” the ghola replied.

Paul’s breath caught in his throat. A flood of memories surged through him — golden, sun-drenched silence between his father and Duncan, their easy smiles, the unspoken language of their shared glances…

“Are you saying they were…” The word lodged itself in his throat, impossible to voice.

“Yes, my lord. They were lovers.”

“You’re a lying piece of Tleilaxu shit!” Gurney snarled, his sword flashing into his hand. “The Duke loved Lady Jessica!”

“No, Gurney.” Paul’s hand shot out, clamping down on his husband’s forearm. His voice was iron. “Let him speak.”

“Your father was an honorable man,” Chadh continued, his gaze flicking to the livid Gurney. “But love makes fools even of the toughest among us. Isn’t that right, Gurney Halleck?”

“Shut your mouth, ghola,” Gurney hissed, the low venom in his tone raising the hairs on Paul’s neck.

Chadh merely smirked. “At first he was suspicious, of course. I told him why I was sent, but he decided to keep his enemy close.” That laugh again. Warm, yet layered with a strange, profound sadness. “He believed he could turn me, mold me into his double agent. He planned his revenge, even after that Harkonnen bastard Feyd took the throne. We met in secret. First in Cidrit Town, then at the wingboat factories. And then… one day, he brought me here.” Chadh spread his arms, a gesture that encompassed the stark beauty of the grove. “I knew then the day would come when he would yield. Not to me, but to the ghost he saw in me. And that was the moment I had been made for.”

Paul stood frozen, the truth a cold weight in his gut. He could feel the heavy, dull throb of his own pulse in his temples, a frantic drum against the stillness that had consumed him. He was unable to utter a single word.

Gurney’s hand snapped to his blade in an eye-blink, and the moment seemed to fracture the air itself. “Enough of your lies!” Gurney growled, voice raw, resonating with the kind of controlled fury that came only from a lifetime of battle and loss. 

Chadh’s expression did not twist into fear or hatred, only a shadowed calm, almost desperate, like a man cornered by himself. “I have nothing left to lose,” he said softly, and then, before Paul could fully process it, he lunged. The movement was precise, trained, inhuman in its efficiency.

Paul froze, heart hammering, as Gurney met him mid-motion. Steel clashed, ringing out across the hollow like a death knell. Chadh was relentless, a perfect weapon honed for killing, yet every blow seemed shadowed by anguish rather than malice. Gurney parried, sweat glinting on his brow, muscles taut, but even the most skilled warrior could not ignore the lethal precision behind the ghola’s strikes.

“Stop!” Paul commanded, summoning the deep resonance of the Voice. The word tore from his throat, layered with the ancient power of the Bene Gesserit, meant to bind the ghola’s will.

Chadh faltered — only for a heartbeat — his eyes narrowing as if the sound brushed some distant memory, and then he moved again, faster, as though the command had been nothing more than a passing breeze.

Paul pushed harder, his voice cutting sharper, desperate. “Stand down!” The syllables rang with hidden harmonics, but the ghola shook them off like rain sliding from stone.

A sudden lunge, a twist, a blur of movement. Gurney lurched forward with a choked gasp, and a hot, sickening dread clenched in Paul’s gut. He watched, helpless, as his husband stumbled, a dark stain already blooming across his shirt.

“Gurney!” Paul cried. He lunged forward, catching the man before he could hit the ground.

“I’m sorry, Paul,” Chadh said, his voice carrying a strange, weary resignation. “Your husband was only a tool to get to you.”

The words struck harder than any blade. Paul’s head snapped up, eyes locking on the ghola. “What do you mean?” His own voice sounded raw to his ears. He tightened his grip around Gurney, feeling the tremor of each labored breath against his chest. The warm slick of blood seeped through his fingers, anchoring him in the moment even as a cold fury surged beneath his skin.

“It could have ended earlier — on Kaitain,” Chadh went on, the wind tugging at his dark hair. “But unfortunately, you were prepared better than I thought.”

Paul’s heart pounded. He already sensed the answer, but he forced the words out. “You were behind the poisoning of our wine?”

“Yes,” Chadh said, unflinching. “I believed you would be an easier target than your father. But I misjudged you.”

The surf roared below, echoing the blood rushing in Paul’s ears. Gurney’s weight grew heavier, his breaths shallow.  “Did Feyd send you to kill us?” Paul said, already knowing the answer. He muttered to himself, “I should have known he wouldn’t leave us be, not after the wedding.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Chadh said grimly. He lifted his sword, preparing for the final blow. “Let’s end this.”

Before Paul could reach for Gurney’s fallen sword, the ghola seized his own blade with both hands. In one swift, almost reverent motion, he turned the point inward and drove it deep into his abdomen, the steel sinking to the hilt.

Paul froze, the world narrowing to a single, terrible sound — the wet gasp that followed. Chadh staggered, crimson blooming across his shirt like a spreading dawn, and then collapsed to his knees.

“No,” Paul whispered, tightening his hold on Gurney as if that could anchor reality. The metallic scent of blood mingled with salt air, sharp and nauseating.

“What… why?” The question scraped out of him, barely a voice at all.

“I don’t know how it happened, my lord,” Chadh rasped. Blood traced a dark path from the corner of his mouth, his breath hitching. “Maybe they made me wrong. But Duncan’s memories… after Duke Leto’s death — nothing made sense anymore.”

Paul’s throat burned. “But it was you who killed him,” he said, the words bitter, heavy.

“Yes,” Chadh breathed. “But… I loved him, I think.” A faint, crooked smile flickered, almost gentle. “Forgive me.”

The ghola exhaled a shuddering final breath and toppled forward, eyes slipping shut, leaving only silence and the roar of the distant surf.

For a long moment Paul could not tell whether the weight in his chest was grief, fury, or the hollow ache of confusion. Duncan Idaho had been dead for years. Yet the man who called himself Chadh had spoken with Duncan’s voice, moved with Duncan’s strength, and carried memories only Duncan could have known. Was it a cruel fabrication of the Tleilaxu, or had some fragment of the man his father loved truly lingered within that carefully grown shell?

The grove had gone eerily silent, the sea below a restless hush that seemed to stretch into eternity. Chadh’s body lay where it had fallen, limbs twisted unnaturally on the ground. The only movement came from the slow dark stain spreading beneath him, a grim echo of the wound in Gurney’s side. Paul could not look at the corpse for long. It felt like staring into a riddle that had no answer, a question he feared would follow him long after the tide carried the body away.

He turned to Gurney, and the breath he had been holding left him in a sharp gasp. Blood soaked through the fabric of Gurney’s shirt, a vivid, widening blot that stole color from everything else. Paul dropped to his knees so fast the twigs and roots bit into his shins. “Gurney,” he said, his voice breaking before it could find strength. He pressed both hands to the wound, feeling the slick heat of life ebbing beneath his palms. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.”

Gurney’s eyes opened just enough to catch the fading light. “Still here,” he muttered, the corners of his mouth twitching toward a grim smile. “You won’t… get rid of me so easy.” The words were brave, but his voice was thin, the breath behind it faltering.

Paul’s mind raced through the useless fragments of medical training he had received — pressure on the wound, keep him warm, don’t let him slip into shock. But the blood kept coming. He pressed harder, whispering commands as if sheer will could knit flesh back together. “You are not leaving me, Gurney. Not like this. Not after everything.” He did not care if it sounded like an order or a plea. He only knew that the thought of a world without this man — this stubborn, steadfast presence — was unthinkable.

The memory of Chadh’s words cut through the panic like a blade: Your husband was only a tool to get to you, the Atreides heir. Paul shoved the thought away, yet it lingered, dark and poisonous. Had Gurney been marked for death simply because he loved Paul? Because the Harkonnens knew where Paul’s heart was most vulnerable? The idea clawed at him, feeding the terror that Gurney might still slip away.

The wind off the sea turned colder, carrying the brine of the tide and the faint metallic scent of blood. Paul forced himself to act. He shifted, sliding an arm beneath Gurney’s shoulders, helping him get up. Gurney let out a low groan but did not resist. The weight of him — solid, familiar, terrifyingly heavy — anchored Paul to the present. He rose carefully, holding Gurney’s body straight, every muscle straining, his own heartbeat a frantic drum.

The path to the ’thopter seemed longer now, a cruel stretch of jagged stone and gathering shadows. Paul moved step by deliberate step, afraid that haste might jolt the wound and cost him what time remained. Each breath Gurney took — shallow but there — became a fragile tether holding Paul to hope. He murmured words without thinking, half comfort, half command: “I have you. I won’t let you go. Just keep breathing for me.”

At the ridge the ornithopter waited, dark against the deepening sky. Paul eased Gurney into the passenger seat, tightening the harness with hands that trembled despite his resolve. He checked the wound again, pressing a strip of cloth against it, praying for the bleeding to slow. Gurney’s eyes fluttered, catching Paul’s gaze for an instant that felt endless. “You’re stronger than you know,” Gurney whispered, the words barely audible. “Don’t… let them break you.”

“I won’t,” Paul vowed, the words heavy with love and fear. He bent to capture Gurney’s lips in a brief, trembling kiss, tasting salt and iron before pulling the cockpit door closed.

As he took the pilot’s seat, the buckle in his pocket pressed hard against his thigh, a cold weight that carried all the confusion of the night — love and betrayal, loyalty and death, all knotted together. He spared one last glance at the cliffs below, where Chadh’s body lay hidden now by the encroaching dark. Was the ghola truly Duncan in some fractured way, or only a weapon shaped to wound them? Paul could not tell, and the uncertainty felt like another wound.

The engines flared to life. The craft lifted into the night, salt wind rushing past as Paul angled toward Caladan’s distant lights. He kept one hand on the controls and the other on Gurney’s, as if by sheer contact he could keep the pulse beneath his fingers from fading. Above the roar of the ’thopter, he whispered the only truth he knew: “I will not lose you.”

Chapter Text

The scarlet haze of pain in front of his eyes refused to fade. It pulsed and throbbed like a living thing. He could feel the cool fingers of a suk doctor on his burning forehead, the prick of an injection sliding beneath his skin, the faint chill of antiseptic air, but none of it softened the agony flaring in his side. It came in waves, sharp and dragging, each one stealing his breath before he could gather it again.

Shapes hovered at the edge of his sight. The walls around him were unfamiliar, a tall window opening onto a view of mountains hazy with distance. For a long moment he tried to place them, but his mind slid away, unwilling to name where he was or how he had come here. Not home, that much he knew. This was elsewhere, and the knowledge left him adrift.

“Gurney,” came a gentle whisper, softer than the hiss of his own breath. “I’m so sorry.”

Someone was weeping quietly, near enough that the sound vibrated through his bones. A cool hand brushed his cheek. Then, a fleeting pressure: lips against his mouth, soft, warm and trembling. The world lurched around him, the red haze deepening until even that fragile touch dissolved into fever.

He did not know exactly what day it was when the fever finally broke. Time had twisted into fragments of night and day, dreams and waking. But one clear morning he opened his eyes to the familiar chamber of Castle Caladan. Stone walls. The scent of sea wind creeping through the shutters. And memory, heavy and whole, sliding back into place.

Paul was there, asleep beside the bed in a chair far too narrow for comfort. His husband’s head lolled forward, dark hair falling over a face drawn by exhaustion. Gurney lay still for a moment, studying him, the quiet rise and fall of his chest, the faint tremble of his long lashes. A slow tenderness swelled in Gurney’s chest, stronger than the ache in his side.

“Paul,” he called, voice rough from disuse, and tried to lift a hand toward him. Pain knifed through his ribs, sharp enough to steal the breath from his throat. He matched each small movement with a careful, deliberate breath until the spasm eased.

Paul stirred, blinking awake, confusion flashing into sudden recognition. He shot to his feet, then—without hesitation—climbed awkwardly onto the mattress, gathering Gurney into his arms.

“Hey now,” Gurney said, a hoarse chuckle rumbling out despite the pain as he patted the slender back. “It’s alright. I’m fine.”

Paul only tightened his hold, a muffled sob shaking through him as he buried his face against Gurney’s chest. The sound cut deeper than any knife. Gurney let his hand settle in Paul’s hair, stroking gently.

Paul told him he had been unconscious for three days, the suk doctors watching every breath, because Chadh’s blade carried poison.

“I thought so…” Gurney grunted, his voice rasping like gravel. Even breathing tugged at the wound; a slow, molten ache spread through his side each time his chest rose. “Would’ve been far too easy if the doctors had me mended in a couple of hours.” He lifted a hand, every muscle protesting, and brushed his calloused fingers along Paul’s cheek. “Still here, eh?”

Paul managed a smile, but it wavered almost as soon as it appeared. He leaned into the touch as though starved for it, eyes half-closed. The sigh that slipped from him was soft and strangely heavy, carrying more than simple relief.

“What’s with Chadh?” Gurney asked, watching Paul’s expression.

“I sent guards to fetch his body from the grove,” Paul said, but his tone was distant, as if the words belonged to someone else. “A Tleilaxu ghola, just like you warned. The Harkonnens found a cruel way to break my father.”

“So what are we going to do with it?” Gurney pressed.

Paul’s shoulders lifted in a small, brittle shrug. “Feyd is the Emperor. What can we do?”

“We could present the body to the Landsraad Council, gather proof that he was behind your father’s death—”

Paul turned his head toward him then, slowly, and the look in his eyes stopped Gurney mid-sentence. It wasn’t anger or even exhaustion; it was a deep, lightless sorrow that seemed to reach beyond the room. “They won’t stand with us,” Paul said quietly. “To defy the Emperor is to invite the same ruin we’ve already lived through. They’ll look away. They always do.”

The words chilled Gurney more than the draft slipping through the stone window. There was something else there—something Paul wasn’t saying.

Paul leaned forward until his forehead rested against Gurney’s shoulder. His weight felt fragile, as though he might dissolve if Gurney tried to hold him tighter. “I’m tired of fighting,” he murmured, voice fraying at the edges.

Gurney let a hand slide into Paul’s hair, silken under his fingers. “But he planned to kill you, too,” he said softly. “He won’t stop.”

Paul drew back just enough for their eyes to meet. The rueful smile that touched his mouth was faint, almost painful to look at. “Let him try,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to run. I only want to spend the time that’s left with you.”

He sounded strangely off, and the deep weariness on his young face made Gurney’s chest tighten. Paul looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, the hollows beneath his eyes bruised with shadow. He must have spent every night beside my bed while I drifted in and out of fever, Gurney thought, his heart clenching as he traced the dark crescents under Paul’s eyes with the pad of his thumb.

“Everything will be fine now,” Gurney said, forcing warmth into a voice that still felt unsteady. “We’ve got plenty of time ahead of us.” He tried to shape the words into a reassuring smile.

Paul gave the faintest nod and leaned into the touch without answering. The weight of his silence pressed heavier than any reply. He didn’t pull away; instead he pressed closer until his forehead rested in Gurney’s palm. For a heartbeat, Gurney felt the fierce, wordless plea in that small gesture—an ache that needed no language at all.

***

The suk doctor’s name was Ursula. Stern, silver-haired, and older than Gurney by at least a decade, she carried herself with the quiet authority of Bene Gesserit training. Every movement was precise—efficient, economical, and without the smallest flicker of emotion. Gurney had faced Sardaukar captains with less composure. She was also the first person to make him realize, without a single dramatic word, that something beneath all the polite care was not right at all.

“Can you give me some… painkillers?” he asked when she bent over him to change the dressing. The bandages were fresh, the sting of antiseptic sharp enough to bite through the haze of his existing medication. He kept his tone casual, as though the request were an afterthought.

She didn’t even glance up. “You’re already on a very strong regimen, sir. It would not matter if I gave you more.”

Gurney frowned. Since the fever had broken he had believed, with a soldier’s stubborn faith, that he was healing—slowly, yes, but inevitably. The wound Chadh left in him was deep, yet it felt no worse than the scars of the slave pits on Giedi Prime. He had endured far more and lived.

“What kind of poison was it, doctor?” he asked, testing her with a sideways look.

This time she paused. The sharp, assessing glance she turned on him made the hairs rise on the back of his neck. “A Tleilaxu compound,” she said at last.

He let out a low breath. “But you can treat it?”

“I’ll do what I can,” she replied, and the careful neutrality of her voice was almost more alarming than an outright refusal. “You must report immediately if you notice changes in your vision, or any new sensations. Especially in the eyes.”

The wording was a cold, hard knot in his thoughts. Gurney nodded slowly and began to pull his shirt back on, feeling the tug of the wound beneath the bandages.

Ursula gathered her instruments and turned toward the door. At the threshold she stopped and, for the first time, truly met his gaze. Her eyes were dark and unwavering, their eerie calm stretched thin over something she wasn't saying.

“Talk to your husband, sir,” she said quietly.

Talking to his husband, though, proved harder than Gurney had imagined. Despite his promise of more time together, Paul no longer lingered in the mornings. When Gurney woke, Paul’s side of the bed was already empty and cool, the sheets smooth as if they’d been remade. During the day, while Gurney lay healing, Paul was elsewhere—sometimes appearing at noon with a tray for lunch, sometimes bringing a book from the library. Those visits were tender and full of small laughter, but they grew rarer and shorter.

Gurney had always been comfortable with solitude, more so than most men, yet the castle’s vaulted halls began to feel less like a sanctuary and more like an ancient prison. He would listen to the ocean hammering the black rocks below and wonder what held Paul so far from him.

At first he told himself Paul was simply keeping the estate in order. But as the absence persisted, he sensed something deeper, something Paul was intent on hiding. Their conversations became a careful dance. Paul would sit at the bedside, voice soft as he asked about Gurney’s comfort, the pain, the bandages. Gurney would answer with the same practiced lightness he’d once used to soothe cellmates before a fight in the slave pits. A distance formed between them— a tension like a bowstring pulled too tight.

He tried, once, to break it. “You don’t have to do it by yourself,” he said as Paul helped him into a clean shirt. “You seem tired enough to be my nurse.”

“It’s fine,” Paul replied, eyes fixed on the buttons. “You should rest.”

“Rest is all I ever do,” Gurney said, letting the dry chuckle fade into something more earnest. He caught Paul’s wrist, the touch gentle but purposeful. “It hurts me to see you like this, fading right in front of me. What’s haunting you? ”

Paul’s gaze flickered to his, then away, a practiced evasion. “It’s nothing you need to trouble yourself with.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Gurney urged, his thumb stroking a slow, soothing rhythm on Paul’s arm. “A burden shared is a burden halved. That’s not just a saying.”

For a moment, he thought he saw a crack in the façade—a slight tremble in Paul’s lower lip, a sheen of unshed tears in his eyes. But Paul only kissed his forehead, a fleeting brush of lips that felt like a locked door being gently closed. “Don’t worry about me,” he murmured, and the conversation ended as quickly as it began.

That night, long after the lamps were extinguished and the castle had sunk into its deep, silence, Gurney woke to a sound he couldn’t name at first—a soft, fractured hitch of breath that sliced through the hush. He shifted carefully, the dull ache in his side flaring, and turned his head toward the sound. Moonlight streamed through the high windows in a spill of silver, painting the chamber in pale fire. Paul lay on his side of the mattress, still dressed, arms wrapped tight around himself as if sheer force might keep him from coming apart. A tremor ran through him, delicate and violent all at once.

“Paul?” The name rose to Gurney’s lips before he could stop it. Another breath followed, a muffled sob, hastily smothered as though Paul feared to wake him.

Pain or no pain, Gurney reached across the narrow distance, gathering him in. The sharp pull in his wound barely registered compared to the shiver of Paul’s body against his. “What is it?” he murmured.

Paul only shook his head, teeth catching his lower lip to hold back the sound. “Nothing… it’s nothing. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Gurney drew him closer until there was no space left between them, covering Paul’s temple and damp cheeks with slow, deliberate kisses. Salt from his tears lingered on Gurney’s lips. “Talk to me,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, I won’t tell a soul.”

Paul hid his face against Gurney’s neck, clutching at him with a desperation that was almost painful. “I just… I was afraid I’d lose you. Like I lost Duncan. Like I lost Father.”

In the faint silvery light Paul looked achingly young, every line of quiet agony laid bare. Gurney’s chest tightened until breathing hurt. “You won’t lose me,” he said softly. “Not while it depends on me.”

Paul’s eyes filled again, shimmering like glass—fragile and luminous, as though one more breath might shatter him entirely. He pressed closer, fitting himself to Gurney’s chest with a silent plea for shelter, and Gurney tightened his arms around him, feeling the sharp bones beneath the silk of his clothes, the wild pulse beneath his skin. He held him until the tremors ebbed to small, shivering aftershocks and Paul’s breath softened, slow and deep, a quiet rhythm that brushed warm against Gurney’s throat and refused to let him drift into sleep of his own.

***

When he could at last move through the corridors without bracing a hand against the wall, Gurney stepped into the gardens in search of air that didn’t taste of linen and medicine. Each breath still tugged at the half-healed wound in his side—a slow, stubborn ache—but he welcomed it. Pain was proof of living, a steady counterpoint to the uneasy quiet that had settled between him and Paul.

The castle gardens unfurled before him in a sweep of wild color and restless motion. Wind from the sea combed through tall grasses until they rippled like a silver tide, bending around clusters of stubborn flowers that clung to the cliff’s edge as if defying the ocean’s pull. The scent of salt and wet stone mixed with the sharp sweetness of rosemary and the faint bite of crushed sage underfoot, a fragrance that carried him, unbidden, to mornings long past on Chusuk.

He followed the narrow flagstone path toward the outer wall. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries high and thin, and spray leapt from the rocks below in sudden bursts that dampened the air. For the first time in weeks, he felt the sky’s vastness pressing down, reminding him that the world was wider than the sickroom.

As he walked deeper into the garden, he spotted a figure in a gray cloak moving along the path ahead, pausing to touch a branch of late-blooming witch hazel. Jessica turned at the sound of his steps, her expression composed, though her eyes caught the fading light like polished amber.

“Lady Jessica,” Gurney said, inclining his head. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“You’re hardly intruding.” Her voice was smooth as ever, but she studied him with a precision that made Gurney feel like a line of text under her gaze. “I’m pleased to see you walking.”

“Feels good to stretch my legs.” He managed a wry smile. “The Suk doctor would rather I stay in bed until I rot.”

“That would not suit you,” she said. They walked together, her steps unhurried, and for a time they spoke of harmless things: the stubborn Caladan weather, the repairs to the outer seawall, the late harvest of the cliffside orchards. Yet beneath her calm, Gurney sensed a current of something unspoken.

“I never had the chance to ask you,” he began at last, the words rough from holding them back, “and I suppose it’s too late to wait for the perfect moment, so… were you aware of what was happening between the Duke and Idaho?”

Jessica’s smile was small, but not unkind. “The gift of Truthsay, sir Gurney, is sometimes more curse than blessing. Yes. I knew of their affair. And I admit”—her voice did not falter—“that I felt relief when Idaho died, though I tried not to show it to Leto. But I suspect he knew me well enough to guess.”

Gurney blinked, surprised by the frankness of her confession. “It’s understandable,” he said, more gently than he expected. “Anyone in your place might have felt the same.”

“I wish your kind words could make it better for me,” she replied, gaze steady. “But what happened is beyond repair. When Duncan died, I was too wounded to speak of it with Leto. I poured all my love into Paul instead and left his father to drown in his own grief. Understandable, yes—but not for a Bene Gesserit sister.”

She exhaled, the sound low and edged with self-reproach. “My teachers warned me. Love makes fools of even the cleverest of us.”

“It does,” Gurney agreed, the truth of it settling in his chest. “Paul still seems… shaken. I thought maybe if you talked to him, it might help. He barely sleeps.”

Jessica slowed her steps, turning her head to study him. The sea breeze teased a strand of hair across her face. “He hasn’t lost sleep over Leto and Duncan,” she said at last. “But I believe you already know that.” Her eyes drifted toward the horizon where the sky bled into the darkening water. “You notice more than most, Gurney Halleck.”

“I notice when my husband starts slipping away from me,” he said, the words sharper than he intended. “And I think you know something.”

For a long moment she said nothing. The wind hissed through the witch-hazel, and the tide’s heartbeat echoed far below. At last she spoke, her voice so gentle he almost missed it. “You love him.”

“I married him,” Gurney answered simply.

“And would do anything for him.”

“That’s the way of it.”

They had reached a stone bench overlooking the cliffs. Jessica sat first, her cloak falling around her like a shadow. “Then you deserve the truth. But you must promise to hear it without anger.”

He lowered himself beside her, the pain in his side flaring as he moved. “Say what you need to say.”

“The Tleilaxu poison in your wound,” she said carefully. “It has no known antidote.”

For an instant everything inside him went still, then a rush of heat climbed his spine. “No known antidote? There’s always something. A counteragent, a Suk technique—”

“Not this time.” Her gaze held his, unflinching. “It will move slowly. First your sight will fade. Then the organs will fail. The end is… not merciful.”

The ground seemed to tilt beneath him. He gripped the bench to steady himself. “Paul knows?”

“I told him,” Jessica admitted. “He refuses to accept it. He calls every contact, studies every record, searches for a cure that does not exist. He drives himself to exhaustion. He will not listen when I tell him there is no hope.”

Gurney stared at the gathering dusk, the waves below catching the last of the sun in shards of copper light. He imagined Paul hunched over ancient texts, eyes burning with stubborn purpose, refusing to surrender to inevitability. It was a picture both fierce and heartbreakingly young.

“He’s still a boy,” Gurney murmured. “A stubborn, brilliant boy.”

“And he is your husband,” Jessica said softly. “But you… You should know when a battle is lost. Do you want him to spend what should be the brightest years of his life in a war against inevitability?”

Her words struck deeper than any blade. Gurney thought of the twenty years between them, of all the scars he carried from slave pits and battlefields, of the music he once played to fill lonely nights. He thought of Paul’s hands—steady on a blade, trembling when they brushed Gurney’s scars—and the quiet desperation behind those green eyes.

“What are you asking of me?” he finally said.

“Let him go,” Jessica replied. “Return to Chusuk. Die where you began. Give him the freedom to live, not to watch you fade.”

The sea roared beneath them, endless and implacable. Gurney felt the weight of every year settle into his bones. He had never run from a fight, but he had also never mistaken stubbornness for honor.

He closed his eyes, drawing in the briny air until it burned his lungs. “If it spares him the torment,” he said at last, his voice low and certain, “I’ll go.”

Jessica inclined her head—not triumphant, not even relieved, only solemn, as if she too carried the burden of the choice.

They sat together in silence as night gathered, the tide’s steady heartbeat marking the time he had left, and in Gurney’s chest a different ache began to grow, deeper and more enduring than the poison itself: the slow, certain pain of leaving Paul behind.

***

The library air hung thick, saturated with the scent of dust and the slow decay of paper. Paul sat hunched over the long table, shoulders aching from hours of stillness. Books and scrolls lay scattered across every surface: Imperial pharmacopoeias, Bene Gesserit herbals, smugglers’ lists of black-market remedies. None of them offered what he needed. The flicker of a single glowglobe painted his fingers in pale gold as he browsed through yet another Suk medical compendium.

Nothing. Always nothing.

He dragged a hand through his hair, tugging until his scalp throbbed. The poison eating at Gurney’s blood had no name in any recorded text. The Tleilaxu left no cure for their craft.

Paul forced his mind into the stillness his mother had drilled into him long ago. Breath in. Hold. Exhale. Think. Surely there had to be some path, some overlooked remedy, a chance that Gurney could survive.

He shut his eyes and listened, reaching for any sign he might have missed: the steady pound of waves beneath the cliffs, the restless sigh of wind through the stone corridors, the low hum of the keep at night. He tried to follow each thought like a trail, but every one led to the same grim conclusion. No secret cure. No sudden revelation. Just silence, hard and impenetrable, as if the universe itself refused to yield.

Paul slammed the compendium shut. The sound cracked through the library like a shot.

“You’ll wake the whole household,” said a voice behind him.

His mother stood in the doorway, cloak drawn tight against the draft. Jessica’s face was as composed as ever, but her eyes betrayed the weight of sleepless nights.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Paul said, not looking up. “I’m working.”

“You’re breaking yourself,” she answered. She crossed the room and rested a hand on the back of his chair. “Again.”

“There’s still a chance—”

“There is not.” Her voice was soft but immovable. “You know as well as I do that the Tleilaxu do not leave cures. And you can’t transmute a poison that is already in the body.”

Paul shoved another book aside. “Then I’ll create the antidote.”

“Even if you could, the time is gone.”

He stood so abruptly the chair skidded against the stone floor. “I will not watch him die.”

Jessica held his gaze. “And if he does? Will you tear apart the universe to undo it?”

Her words struck like a slap, but then her expression softened. “My son,” she said quietly, “love does not always mean victory. Sometimes it means presence.”

He turned away, his shoulders trembling. “Presence isn’t enough.”

“It may be all he asks.”

He kept stubbornly silent, until she left with a soft sigh, leaving him standing in the growing dark, motionless until the cold crept through his boots, seeped into his flesh, and settled deep into his bones.

The next days blurred into a relentless pattern: dawn and dusk indistinguishable beneath the castle’s gray sky. Couriers were sent to Ix, to the Guild, to fringe smugglers who trafficked in forbidden biotics. Each message returned empty. Paul contacted Bene Gesserit archives, invoking authority he no longer trusted. Silence.

At night he returned to the library, chasing scraps of information until his vision blurred. Servants whispered of his haunted look, his hollow cheeks. He ignored them. Meals went untouched; sleep became a stranger. When his body finally betrayed him, he would wake slumped over the table, the glowglobes long dead, the tide hammering the cliffs outside like a judgment.

Jessica brought him food herself, clearly hoping to talk him into abandoning his exhausting search. Sometimes she simply sat in the shadows, waiting until he noticed her. “Paul,” she said one evening, her voice fraying with quiet grief, “you are losing him twice—once to the poison, and once to your own despair.”

He did not answer. To speak would be to admit that despair had already claimed him. That night, when he returned to his and Gurney’s room, he expected the same oppressive silence he’d cultivated for days. Instead, a faint sound bled through the heavy wood — music. A baliset, played not with skill for an audience, but with feeling for a single listener. The notes were slow and raw, the melody broken like a heart remembering how to beat.

Paul pushed the door open.

The room was dim, lit only by a single lamp and the pale wash of moonlight through the balcony doors. Gurney sat propped against the pillows, the baliset resting across his knees. His hair caught the silver light, threaded with more gray than before.

Paul stepped inside, sudden guilt pressing against his ribs. How long had it been since he’d truly looked at his husband?

Gurney’s eyes lifted. They were calm, startlingly clear. “You’re still awake.”

“So are you.” Paul tried to keep his voice steady. “You should rest.”

A wry smile curved Gurney’s mouth. “I could say the same.”

Paul crossed to the bed. Up close he could see the faint sheen of sweat on his brow. Yet it was the steadiness in his gaze that struck deepest—a quiet acceptance Paul hadn’t earned.

“You’ve been working yourself to death,” Gurney said gently.

The last word lingered like a single toll of a distant bell. Paul fought to keep his breath steady, to keep the tremor from his voice. The wind off the sea moaned against the shutters, cold and sharp. Autumn had stripped the garden of color; the castle felt hollow, more stone than home. I can’t lose him, Paul told himself for the thousandth time. Not like my father. Not like this.

“Just some castle business,” he replied, trying for casual ease. “Helping Mother while we’re here.”

Even as he spoke, he saw what the failing light revealed: the deeper lines at the corners of Gurney’s eyes, the slight hollowness to his cheeks. Shadows clung to him, not just from the waning sun but from something inside, something Paul’s frantic remedies had not slowed.

Gurney sat propped against pillows, a baliset across his lap, his rough fingers moving lightly over the strings. “Where did you find that?” Paul asked, lowering himself onto the bed beside him.

“Servants said it was your old one,” Gurney said, plucking a low, warm chord.

Paul gave a small laugh that sounded thin in the cold air. “I never learned to play it properly. No ear for music.”

“That’s nonsense,” Gurney grunted. He handed the instrument to Paul. “Go on. Give it a try.”

The baliset’s polished wood felt warm against Paul’s palms. He struck a string; a soft, wavering note filled the room. He tried another, and the sound trembled like a breath caught between heartbeats.

“See?” Gurney said quietly. “You’ve got it. Just takes nerve.”

Paul managed a faint smile, but inside his chest something twisted tight. “You always make it sound easy,” he murmured. “But it isn’t.”

“Life isn’t easy either.” Gurney’s eyes held his. “But you do what you can with the notes you’re given.”

Paul felt the blood drain from his face. He set the baliset aside carefully. “You’re speaking in riddles again.”

“Maybe I am,” Gurney said. “Or maybe I’m done pretending.”

Paul’s throat tightened. “Pretending what?”

“That I don’t know what you’re hiding from me.” Gurney’s voice stayed low, each word landing heavy. “I see the way you look at me when you think I’m asleep. The way you come back from those late walks.”

Turning away to stare at the dark window, Paul lied for what felt like the thousandth time. It was the same lie he’d told with every calm smile and every “you’ll be fine” whispered against Gurney’s hair—the unforgivable lie of comfort. “You shouldn’t push yourself,” he said, the words ash in his mouth. “You need to rest.”

Gurney gave a faint, sad smile. “I’m the one dying, but it’s you who looks ready to break.”

Paul turned sharply. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.” Gurney’s gaze was steady, unbearably gentle. “The poison—whatever name it has—I can feel it working. And you… you’ve known all along.”

Paul flinched. “I wanted to find a cure before I told you. I thought—” His voice cracked. “I thought if I worked fast enough, if I found the right path, I could save you and you’d never have to know how close it came.”

Gurney reached for his hand, his grip still strong despite the illness. “You’ve been tearing yourself apart for nothing.”

“There had to be a way.” Paul’s words came in a rush now, frantic, pleading. “I searched every contact. I sent messengers to the Guild, to off-world healers. I begged Mother for names only Bene Gesserit sisters know. There has to be something!”

Gurney squeezed his hand. “Paul…”

“No,” Paul said fiercely, jerking free. “You don’t get to decide that you’ll just fade away. You don’t get to decide for both of us.”

“This isn’t about choice,” Gurney said, quiet but firm. “It’s about what’s real. And what’s real is that I don’t want you to watch me go blind and helpless, to see me break apart piece by piece. I want to leave before it gets that far. I want to go home. To Chusuk.”

Paul felt the words like ice. “You’d leave me?”

“I’d spare you.” Gurney’s voice was rough with sorrow. “You deserve a life, Paul. Not a deathwatch.”

Paul stood abruptly, pacing to the window. Beyond the glass, the moonlit ocean surged under a night sky, endless and cold. “You think I care about that?” His voice shook. “Do you think I can wake every morning in this castle and wonder if you’re still breathing across the stars? You are the only thing that matters to me, Gurney.”

He heard Gurney’s breath hitch, but no words came. The absence of Gurney’s voice, the one that had always grounded him, was more terrifying than any protest.

In that prolonged silence, Paul saw the future with chilling clarity: a cold, empty house in a world grown dim, a lifetime of duty measured against the certain agony of this loss. It was no choice at all. He turned back, his gaze sweeping over Gurney, memorizing the lines of pain and strength on his face.

“If you go to Chusuk, I’ll go with you,” he vowed, the words feeling like the first truth he’d spoken in weeks. “I don’t care about Caladan, or the Houses, or any damned duty. I will not stay here while you die alone.”

“Paul, you don’t have to do this,” Gurney said, his voice rough as gravel. “Your family’s had enough grief—don’t add to it.”

“You are my family.” Paul sat beside him on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. “From the day we married and for the rest of my life. So don’t tell me to stay behind. Don’t ask me to let you go, because I won’t.”

Gurney raised a hand, calloused fingers cradling Paul’s jaw. “You’re as relentless as the tide,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth curving in a ghost of a smile. “No matter what stands in your way—you keep coming.”

“You taught me that,” Paul said, catching Gurney’s wrist and pressing the rough palm against his cheek. The warmth there was a lifeline. “Every lesson you ever gave me, every time you refused to yield — don’t ask me to forget them now.”

Gurney drew him closer and kissed him with no urgency, as if they had a thousand kisses still ahead. “I wanted you to survive,” he whispered against Paul’s lips. “Not to follow me into the dark.”

Paul tightened his hold, afraid that if he let go even for an instant Gurney would dissolve like mist. “Then show me how to keep you here,” he said, his voice breaking. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Gurney gave a low, pained laugh. “You always were too stubborn for your own good.”

“And you always liked that about me,” Paul shot back before he could think better of it. Heat surged to his face, but he didn’t look away. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

For a heartbeat Gurney’s eyes—darker now, their edges clouded by the poison—searched his. Something unspoken flickered there, a recognition that made Paul’s pulse pound. He could feel the words rising, dangerous and unstoppable.

“You matter more than anything,” Paul said, the confession trembling just beneath the surface. “More than duty. More than—” He cut himself off, breath catching, the last word hanging unsaid but blazing between them.

Gurney’s fingers tightened slightly against Paul’s cheek, as though he heard it anyway. “Paul…” he began, and his voice softened into something that was almost wonder, almost warning.

Paul leaned closer, forehead nearly touching Gurney’s, the space between them charged and aching. “Don’t leave me behind,” he whispered. “Not now. Not ever.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, their breaths mingling in the quiet. Neither of them spoke the word love. It hovered unsaid, too vast and too fragile to risk in speech.

Finally Gurney murmured, “If you come, you’ll see the worst of it.”

“I’ll be with you,” Paul replied. “That’s all that matters.”

Gurney’s eyes shone with something Paul couldn’t name—sorrow, perhaps, or a flicker of peace. He leaned back against the pillows, his hand never leaving Paul’s.